Peter J. Gomes - "On Being Uneasy in Zion" (June 29, 1975) / Duke Chapel Recordings / Duke Digital Repository

(orchestral music)

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Priest

In the name and in the loving spirit of Christ,

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I greet you.

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Let us pray.

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Oh God, You are present,

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we are present.

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You have called us, and we have responded.

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You want us to live in Your love and with Your love.

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So we have come now to worship,

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to give thanks for what You have done to us and for us,

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to listen to what You have to say to us,

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and to share with You the joy

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that You have given to each of us and to us together.

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Help us to make good use of this time as we worship.

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And when we go out,

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help us to share Your love with others through Jesus Christ,

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our Lord.

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Amen.

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(orchestral music)

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(orchestral music continues)

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One proof of God's amazing love is just this,

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that while we are sinners still, Christ died for us,

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and loves us.

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And it is in this same Jesus,

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because we do have faith in Christ,

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that we dare to approach God with confidence,

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to receive forgiveness and strength.

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As we offer God our prayer of confession,

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will you join with me in this particular prayer?

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Let us pray.

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God,

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we come before you knowing we have tried to hide from you,

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from one another, and from ourselves.

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Somehow we have felt that by depending upon our own powers

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we could solve the problems of life.

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We have tried to escape by withdrawing from the difficult,

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the challenging, the crucifying experiences of life.

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We have become trapped

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in a meaningless round of insignificant activities,

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while we have added project we ought to have done.

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We have strayed far

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from the fullness of life You have promised us.

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Forgive us for our self-centeredness,

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our proudness, our weakness, our blindness.

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Have mercy upon us that we may become your people anew.

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Amen.

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My friends in Christ,

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these words are completely acceptable and reliable.

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Christ Jesus entered the world to give meaning to our lives,

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to forgive, to heal, to bind,

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to restore, to renew.

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If one is in Christ,

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one becomes a new person altogether.

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The past is finished and over,

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everything becomes fresh and new.

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God's mercy is ever present.

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I tell you in the name of Christ,

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we are forgiven.

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Amen.

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Let us hear the Word of God.

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"And Jacob was left alone

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and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.

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When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob,

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he touched the hollow of his thigh,

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and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint

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as he wrestled with him.

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Then he said,

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"let me go for the day is breaking."

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Jacob said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

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And he said to him, "what is your name?"

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And he said, "Jacob."

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Then he said,

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"your name shall be called Jacob, no more, but Israel,

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for you have striven with God and with man

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and have prevailed."

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Then Jacob asked him, "tell me, I pray, your name."

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"Why is it that you ask my name?"

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And there, he blessed him.

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So Jacob called the name of the place, Peniel saying,

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"for I have seen God face to face,

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and yet my life is preserved."

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"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for,

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the conviction of things not seen,

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for by it the men of old received divine approval.

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By faith,

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we understand that the world was created by the Word of God,

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so that what is seen was made of things which do not appear.

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By faith,

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Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain,

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through which he received approval as righteous.

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God bearing witness by accepting his gifts, he died,

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but through his faith, he is still speaking.

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By faith,

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Enoch was taken up so that he should not see death,

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and he was not found because God had taken him.

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Now,

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before he was taken, he was attested as having pleased God.

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And without faith,

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it is impossible to please God,

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for whoever would draw near to God

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must believe that God exists,

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and that God rewards those who seek him.

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By faith,

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Noah being warned by God concerning events as yet unseen,

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took heed and constructed an Ark

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for the saving of his household.

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By this, he condemned the world

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and became an heir of the righteousness,

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which becomes the faith.

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By faith, Abraham obeyed

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when he was called to go out to a place

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in which he was to receive an inheritance,

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and he went out not knowing where he was to go.

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By faith,

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he sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign land,

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living in tents with Isaac and Jacob,

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heirs with him of the same promise.

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For he looked forward to the city which has foundations,

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whose builder and maker is God.

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By faith, Sarah herself received power to conceive,

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even when she was past the age,

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since she considered him faithful, who had promised.

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Therefore, from one man and him as good as dead,

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we're born descendants as many as the stars of heaven

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and as innumerable as the grains of sand by the seashore.

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These all died in faith,

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not having received what was promised,

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but having seen it and greeted it from afar,

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and having acknowledged that they were strangers

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and exiles on the earth.

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For people who speak thus,

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make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

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If they had been thinking of that land

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from which they had gone out,

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they would have had opportunity to return,

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but as it is, they desire a better country

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that is a heavenly one.

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Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God,

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for he has prepared for them a city.

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Here ends the reading of the lessons for the day.

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May God's Spirit speak to you and to me through these words.

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Amen.

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In one voice, let us affirm our faith.

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We are not alone.

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We live in God's world.

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We believe in God who has created and is creating,

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who has come in the truly human Jesus

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to reconcile and make new,

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who works in us and others through the spirit.

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We trust God who calls us to be the church,

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to celebrate life and its fullness,

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to love and serve others,

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to seek justice and resist evil,

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to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen,

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our judge and our hope

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in life, in death, in life beyond death,

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God is with us.

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We are not alone.

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Thanks be to God.

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The Lord be with you.

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Congregation

And with your spirit.

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Priest

Let us pray.

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Oh God, once present in Christ,

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always present in the Spirit,

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once near, always near,

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once loving, always loving,

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what a day to be alive,

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alive in honesty about who we are,

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alive in sensitivity to our own feelings

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and the feelings of others,

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alive in hope, that we may yet find more in life

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than we have known thus far.

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This is the day which you have made,

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a day of sunshine, singing birds, warm breezes,

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refreshing rain,

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moments of reflection, touches of care and concern,

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smiles of acceptance and affirmation,

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eyes that glow with love and trust,

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glad handshake and words of support.

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Oh God,

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we need to be aware of our need for others,

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and aware of others needs of us.

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And so we thank you for this day, this moment,

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and for one another.

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But there are other thoughts and other prayers, oh, God,

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friends and loved ones of ours

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have had tough times this week.

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Neighbors who are ours literally,

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and neighbors who are ours symbolically,

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have walked in darkness,

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have sat in the shadow,

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have suffered on beds of pain,

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have struggled through endless nights,

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have endured separation and heartache

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have faced difficult and irreversible decisions,

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and longed for more love in the midst of life.

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So God be present with our friends, and family,

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and neighbors of the world with grace,

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with strength, with insight, and with assurance.

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Create in each of us, oh God, larger and deeper capacities

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for indignation as well as sympathy,

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for anger that burns against all that exploits youth,

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or takes advantage of the middle-aged

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or ignores the elderly.

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Teach us both the time and the place to be intolerant.

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Teach us, oh God,

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that there is approval that is not worth our having,

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and that there are enemies any good person ought to have.

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Teach us not to be surprised if our love divides

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as well as unites.

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So as we pray for others and for ourselves,

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may we all always be constrained

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by the love of Jesus Christ.

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That same Jesus who gave us His love and His life,

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and who calls us to do the same.

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Hear us as we pray,

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and hear us as we offer the prayer

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which our Lord has said that his disciples should pray.

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"Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name,

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Thy kingdom come,

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Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us this day our daily bread,

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and forgive us our trespasses

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as we forgive those who trespass against us.

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Lead us not into temptation,

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but deliver us from evil,

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for Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.

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Amen.

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In the name of Christ,

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I welcome you to this service of worship,

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and say that we are pleased

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that you have chosen this place, this time,

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to come together in the name of God.

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We particularly welcome two groups of persons

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whom I know are here.

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Those who are here from afar,

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attending the campus ministers continuing education program,

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and those who are involved in the late pastor studies

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in Duke Divinity School,

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and all others who come to this place in this hour.

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As our most days and most experiences of life,

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this particular service brings to many of us,

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a moment of joy and a moment of sadness.

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Joy because, once again,

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we are aware of the very significant contributions

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that Floyd Goolik has made to the life

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and worship of this chapel for three years now.

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And as you have heard him play thus far

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and will hear him play throughout the rest of the service,

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you know exactly what I mean, and of which I speak.

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And at the end of his three years of service here,

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I,

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on behalf of literally thousands and thousands of persons

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who have been blessed and inspired,

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and touched by his music on the organ,

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wish to express to him publicly,

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our deep appreciation, and our very best wishes.

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That's the note of sadness,

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because this is the last Sunday he will be playing with us

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as the chapel organist.

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So Floyd, to you, we extend our thanks and our best wishes,

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and pray God's blessing upon you.

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At 6:30 this afternoon in Duke Gardens,

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there will be a service of worship to which you are invited.

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So in addition to worshiping in this majestic chapel,

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we invite you to come and worship on the green grass.

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6:30 this afternoon in Duke Gardens.

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It's our privilege today,

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to have with us to preach, the Reverend Dr. Peter Gomes.

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In the fall of 1974,

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Dr. Gomes was appointed

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to one of the most distinguished pulpits

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and positions in the country,

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as he was named Minister in Memorial Church

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at Harvard University,

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and Plummer Professor of Christian Morals

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in the school of divinity there.

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He is here this week to lead a group of campus ministers

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in exploring some of their own struggles,

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and in finding some meaning

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and some ways in which to apply ministry to the world today.

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We welcome him on his first visit to Duke University.

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We welcome him now to Duke Chapel,

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and in the name and in the spirit of God,

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we hear word which he brings to us.

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Floyd

I should like to paraphrase

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the late Dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London and say,

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before I begin my sermon, I have something to say,

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and that is,

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to express my great joy

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at being able to worship with you in this house

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and to thank you for the kind hospitality,

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which you have extended to me, Mr. Dean,

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and to the members of this community

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who have been so gracious to me.

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It is good to bring you greetings

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from your sister church in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

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My title is on "Being Uneasy in Zion."

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And the text is the first verse

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of the sixth chapter of the prophecy of Amos.

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"Woe to those who are at ease in Zion,

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and to those who feel secure on the mountain of Samaria."

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10 years ago,

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when I entered the Harvard Divinity School

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as a first year student,

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not many people there or anywhere else

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gave much hope for the future of the church.

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We were told that we were preparing for a profession,

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which was in a state of rapid retrogression.

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The priests and the pastors were now but pale shadows

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of the psychiatrists, the sociologists,

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and the prophets of the streets.

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Indeed,

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we were enjoying to be honest to God

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in our uncomfortable pews in the secular city.

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The ministry was now simply one of the helping professions,

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and the one, obviously, in need of the most help.

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It was in bad shape,

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but it had a chance if it could be liberated

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from the clutches of the even more cancerous church.

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For the church,

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like the house of peers throughout the wall,

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did nothing in particular, and did it very well.

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God was in the final stages of His terminal illness,

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and while the attending physicians, doctors,

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all times are Hamilton and Van Buren,

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would not pronounce him officially dead

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until Good Friday, 1966.

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Everyone in the know

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knew that there was little left by the sweeping up.

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And those tentative formative years,

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I remember a classmate of mine in the divinity school,

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upon returning from his field work assignment

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at one of our hospitals in Boston,

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recalled in a lot of detail,

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his encounter with one of the medical residents there.

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They were both concerned

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about a terminally ill patient on the floor.

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The seminarian wanted to minister as best he could

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to the dying man,

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and so too did the young medical student,

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who had little respect for whatever it was

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the seminarian could do.

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They engaged in a verbal tussle

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outside of the patient's room.

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And finally in a violent rage,

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the medical resident

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forbade the seminarian access to the patient saying,

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"you people, you church types, you deal in failure,

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we deal with success."

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Such were the cold realities of those days,

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but a decade ago.

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Seminarians who once dreamed

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of the combined splendors of Rome and Barchester Towers

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were now reduced to service as menial acolytes

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at a Requiem with precious few mourners ever.

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From the pinnacles of power,

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they were cast to subsidiary roles in society,

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not so much hostile to them as simply indifferent.

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Professors, lawyers, civil servants, and doctors,

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these journey come lately professions,

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the secular secretariat as it were,

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had in fact come into their own,

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leaving priest and church in the lurch.

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A few weeks ago, a colleague of mine in the divinity school,

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speaking of the relationship between medicine and divinity,

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shared the following story.

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"An Anglican Bishop died,

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and surprisingly enough was translated to heaven.

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When he arrived there,

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he was met at the gates by Gabriel and St. Peter,

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who were to brief him on celestial protocol.

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They told him that heaven,

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unlike the earth where rank and privilege abounded,

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was an egalitarian place.

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He would have to stand in line in the divine cafeteria,

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just like everybody else.

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His dignity hurt, but not destroyed,

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his grace lined up.

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As the line made its way,

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the Bishop was alarmed to see a rather tall figure

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dressed in white, spotting a stethoscope round his neck

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break ranks and stride toward the head of the line.

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Furious,

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the Bishop took the matter up with Gabriel and St. Peter

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demanding to know who this fellow thought he was.

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"Well," explain the angels, "you see, that's God.

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He just loves to play doctor."

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"Who needs the church?"

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We are asked.

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Dr. Gallop and Mr. Harris

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tell us that fewer and fewer people do each year.

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When the youthful reporter

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from Harvard's undergraduate daily,

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The Crimson,

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came to interview me

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upon my appointment as preacher at the university

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this past fall,

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he asked,

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"I guess I should congratulate you, sir,

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but isn't this a bit of an anachronism these days?

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Saint and sinner tell us that the church is sick,

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the clergy dispirited that all is not well in Zion.

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The institution suffers from a colossal loss of nerve,

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it gropes through a world

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in which it is increasingly unnecessary,

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and with which it is increasingly unfamiliar.

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It has twitches and spasms,

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which to the eye of the optimist,

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suggests yet a little life and the old beast,

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but to the pessimist and his first cousin the realist,

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suggest the last rattle before death.

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God's frozen people suspended between life departed

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an death not yet a arrived.

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(indistinct), where has the glory departed,

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when the prayers of the faithful could move mountains

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and the righteous fist of the clergy could move kings,

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emperors, and city councils?"

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Surely, it wasn't always this way.

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There were once palmy days,

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days of power and influence.

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The kingdom of God on earth,

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our own local Zion

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filled with the saints of Rome, or Geneva, or Boston,

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or Dorham, or the Western Imperial.

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But in those days of splendor and might,

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those days when buildings like this

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dotted the landscape of Western Europe and were filled,

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in those days, the chances are very good

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that the church was not able to hear the message,

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it so desperately needed to receive,

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because it was so busy sending out its own signals.

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Look, if you will, at the history of the Western church,

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wherever the church has been successful and powerful,

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and influential in terms of the world's measure,

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it has also been at its most venial and culpable self.

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It was the powerful and influential Christendom

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that waged the holy wars, and the crusaders.

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It was the mind of infallible Rome

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that bade 15th and 16th century science keep silent.

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It was praise God bare-bones,

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Oliver Cromwell and his praying Presbyterians

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that ravaged the head of Charles I,

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and rampaged throughout England.

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And it was their American brethren of Massachusetts Bay,

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who by their theocratic excesses,

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embraced the hysteria of witchcraft

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and the genocide of the native Americans.

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And indeed it was a Christian nation, a Christian south.

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The most enlightened and literate nation in the world,

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which trafficked inhuman slavery,

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and invoked God's very name to do so.

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Imperial or national Christendom,

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has left to us a frighteningly mixed legacy.

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The church was not built for power.

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At least,

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not for the sort of power which comes easily to humankind.

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And every time it has had power,

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it has managed to mismanage it.

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Every metaphor of the Bible

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which endures beyond its own captivity in time,

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and as long as it's instructive to us,

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is a metaphor whereby what the world calls power

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is in fact weakness,

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and what the world despises as weak and of low degree,

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is a vehicle by which the power of God is transmitted.

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Think of it,

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a baby born of a virgin in an abandoned stable,

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a teacher who published no books,

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a prophet whose failure to communicate

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was exhibited upon a cross.

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A community of persecuted, disappointed, and dispersed folk,

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lost and insecure.

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Our failure as a church and as Christians

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is not that we have failed in this world.

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It is that we have failed to see the golden calf of success

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for what it really is.

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Failure.

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That is the only real failure

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in which we can stand indicted.

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Only when we will have come to the point of other disaster,

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only when we will know what failure,

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and disappointment, and defeat really are,

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only when we will be able to embrace suffering

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and abandonment as the way of the cross,

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only then will we be able to perceive

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yet one more change in us.

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That which was once dead, now becomes alive with new life.

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It is here that we pitch our tent,

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here that we learn how to be uncomfortable

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and uneasy in Zion.

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Rather than rushing about

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in a futile attempt to protect our eroding flank

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from the forces of the secularists,

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we yield to the doctors such glory as is theirs,

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to the civil servants, such power as is theirs,

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to the academics, such security as is theirs.

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They play a game in which we cannot and must not compete.

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We have seen the failure of that success before.

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We as Christians are led to a struggle.

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A struggle, however, not for success,

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but rather for hope.

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Jake Lou tells us,

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"if it is true

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that the world in which we live is a world of abandonment,

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if it is true that God is silent and that we are alone,

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then it is under these circumstances,

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and at this moment,

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that the preaching, the proclamation, the declaration

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and the living of hope is urgent.

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In the absence of all of the world promises

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confronted by the astounding lack of visible evidence,

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we join the audacious Paul in saying,

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"who hopes for what he sees,

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hope indeed is the passion for the impossible."

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Restless struggle,

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militant confrontation between what we are

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and what we would be,

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that is what we are called to embrace.

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The church fathers were fond of referring to the living

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Christian community on earth as the church militant,

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the fighting church.

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And they didn't mean it

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in the sense that most Methodists and Baptists

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understand the fighting church.

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They meant,

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the community that was always struggling

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to become what it would be, and could not be

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without an ample supply of God's grace.

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And to this church,

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this militant struggling fighting church,

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the patron Saint is our good friend and our brother, Jacob.

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His cosmic struggle by night becomes the pattern of our own.

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His faults and sins are ours.

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And so too, pray God, is his hope.

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He was denied his night's ease,

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a painless and unimpeded progress.

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He was brought low and bruised, and yet he persevered,

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and in the process won for himself a new name,

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a new destiny.

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His was neither a cheap grace nor an easily bought identity.

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He bore the bruises and the limp of his cosmic confrontation

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all the days of his life.

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And yet bruised and lamed, he moved onward,

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transformed by the holy collision

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between the divine and the human.

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The father saw in Jacob, a type and sign of the church.

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He struggled for the heavenly vision,

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was granted it in grace,

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and allowed to continue not the same,

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but transformed.

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So Jacob called the place Peniel saying,

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"for I have seen God face to face,

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and yet my life is preserved."

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The restlessness of our ancestor,

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his struggle, his perseverance, his preservation,

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to what end?

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To find a comfortable spot

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where in the words of the old spiritual,

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the wicked will cease from troubling,

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the weary will be at rest,

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and every day will be Sunday by and by.

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Not as scripture has anything to say to us.

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We are enjoined in the fiery words of Amos,

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not to be at ease in Zion.

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This Zion,

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because this Zion

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is not where we are to lay down our burdens.

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Jacob's struggle and our own are worthwhile and necessary,

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not because of where we are,

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not even because where we have been,

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but because of where we are going.

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It is the pilgrims' vision

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that makes the pilgrimage worthwhile.

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And this life is that pilgrimage.

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To be at ease in Zion is to grow lazy in the struggle,

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tired in the journey,

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to build premature temples

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in the place of our more practical tents.

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The journey is the context of the struggle,

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and for the Christian and the church,

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the journey and the struggle become real and worthwhile

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only when the goal, the end, the purpose,

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is clearly in mind.

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The hope of eternal Felicity in Christ,

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the vision of the glorious golden city,

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the Zion or other worldly Jerusalem,

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which blew the mind of John in his revelation,

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and which tantalizes all of us

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who hope for more than we can see.

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It is indeed the figure of pilgrims on pilgrimage,

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that Hebrews cast for us.

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That roll call of saints among whom is Jacob,

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who all died in faith

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not having received what was promised,

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but having seen it and greeted it from afar,

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and having acknowledged

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that they were strangers and exiles on the earth,

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All people who speak to us

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make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.

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If they had been thinking of that land

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from which they had gone out,

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they would have had the opportunity to return.

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But as it is, they desire a better country

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that is a heavenly one.

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Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God,

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for he has prepared for them a city.

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The idea of a pilgrim people is rather hard for us to take.

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Few of us go on pilgrimages to even fewer holy places.

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Most of us believe

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that we have arrived at the place of a pilgrimage,

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we have come to our Zion and our mountain of Samaria

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in Cambridge, or in Durham, or wherever,

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we are one with the hermit

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who when asked why he didn't retravel

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replied, "I am where I'm going."

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It is such clouded vision that obscures the perspective

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and distorts the priorities of the Christian and the church.

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But as far as struggle is to have any meaning at all,

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any purpose,

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we cannot believe that we are where we are going.

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Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,

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we too must look forward to that city which has foundations,

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whose builder and whose maker is God.

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We are in St. Augustine's words, "a colony of heaven."

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To mistake this outpost, this frontier,

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this feeble replica for the real thing,

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is again, in the metaphor of Hebrews,

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to mistake Mt. Sinai for Mt. Zion.

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Or if you prefer a secular and a classical metaphor,

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it is to take comfort from the shadows in Plato's cave,

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and mistake that illusion for the reality,

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of which it is, but an approximation.

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Now,

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before you think that I am off on an other worldly kick,

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and I'm suggesting that Christians need to look

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beyond the pressing needs of their present environment,

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let me hasten to assure you that

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that is precisely what I am saying.

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It is not council born out of despair,

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but rather out of confidence.

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we are not called to an other worldly gospel

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because the heat is too hot in this world,

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almost as hot as it is in this chapel,

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we are called to manage, and struggle,

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and engage in this world

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because we are constrained by a vision that is greater

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than this world.

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That is what perspective can do.

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Perspective is a vision that extends from what is,

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and can be seen to an end

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that exceeds our capacity to understand and contain it.

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Now, doubtless,

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you've heard all of this before.

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"We are in the world, but not of it."

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We cannot avoid this world and its demands upon us,

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it's complex, social, and moral agenda

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anymore than Jacob could avoid his great

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and cosmic struggle.

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Such confrontation where across the crowded ways of life

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is the process to which we are called,

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and through which we are sustained

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by none other than Jesus Christ,

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the author and perfecter of our faith.

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But we make a terrible mistake,

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a profound miscalculation if we neglect to remember

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that this process while worthy in itself,

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has its ultimate meaning in the end, toward which we strive.

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Unlike general electric, progress,

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some enlightened notion of better and better every day

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is not our most important product.

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Success is not our bag, faithfulness is.

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Wherever there are tensions and conflicts,

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we Western academics, we, the misbegotten heirs of Hagle,

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we run looking for a synthesis,

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anything to relieve us of the terrible burden of ambiguity.

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There is no synthesis,

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no happy middle ground between our profession

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as citizens of a city that has foundations,

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whose builder and maker is God,

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and our citizenship in any of our prefabricated zions.

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While there is time, there is tension,

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and there is ambiguity,

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the stuff of which this world is made.

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When we will have found it comfortable,

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pleasant, successful, easy in Zion in other words,

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we should realize that we have taken a dangerous detour

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in our pilgrimage.

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We have become seduced by a mirage

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rather than enchanted by a reality.

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In our power, in our might, in our success,

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and in our achievement,

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we find this message difficult to hear,

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and unpleasant to understand.

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For power, and might, and success,

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these are the things that make living in Zion tolerable,

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living in Samaria comfortable.

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We have security in our institutions,

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and positive thinking in our egos.

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We can play with the idols of success and relevance,

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attaching ourselves to their inexorable circles.

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Indeed, blessed are they that go round and big circles,

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for they should be called big wheels.

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But in that awful silence,

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when the captains and the kings depart,

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the tumult and the shouting dies,

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when nobody is listening to us anymore,

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perhaps, we will then be able to hear in that silence,

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that message so necessary to our preservation as pilgrims.

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Do not rest easy here,

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neither be so easily satisfied with success

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nor intimidated by failure.

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The struggle and the pilgrimage are possible

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because we are led by one who has endured all that,

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who has been where we are going.

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We have one who has been before us and is yet with us.

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We have his swift witness and his sure promise,

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for it is Jesus Christ which makes it all possible,

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who redeems both the times and us.

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And for that,

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we bless God and say again with Hebrews,

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"lift up your drooping hand and strengthen your weak knees,

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make straight paths for your feet

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so that what is lame may be put out of joint

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and rather healed.

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See that you do not refuse him who is speaking.

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And let us be grateful

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for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken.

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Let us pray.

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Master of all things who has so ordered it

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that life from the beginning shall be a struggle

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throughout the course and even to the end,

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so guide and direct that struggle within us,

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that in a pilgrimage, what is good in us may conquer,

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and all things may be brought into that ultimate harmony,

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which is found in Jesus Christ, our Lord

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through whom we pray.

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Amen.

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(orchestral music)

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(orchestral music continues)

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Priest

Oh, Lord, our God,

1:02:09

send down upon each of us now, Your holy spirit

1:02:11

to cleanse our hearts, to hallow our gifts,

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and to perfect this offering of ourselves to You

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through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

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Amen.

1:02:30

(orchestral music)

1:02:34

The grace of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ,

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the love of God,

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the fellowship of the holy spirit,

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be with you now and forever.

1:07:43

(orchestral music)

1:07:51

(bell chimes)

1:08:56

(orchestral music continues)

1:09:10

(crowd applause)

1:13:28

Peter J. Gomes - "On Being Uneasy in Zion" (June 29, 1975)

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1. Peter J. Gomes - "On Being Uneasy in Zion" (June 29, 1975)

Duke University Archives

Peter J. Gomes - "On Being Uneasy in Zion" (June 29, 1975)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives