Paul A. Mickey - "Applied Robbery or Prayerful Peace" (August 3, 1975)

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	(choir singing hymn inaudible)	0:13
Clergywoman	Let us pray.	1:30
	Oh, Holy God,	1:33
	You are always waiting for us	1:35
	until we open ourselves to Your presence.	1:39
	We wait now for Your Word,	1:44
	attune us to Your silence.	1:48
	Speak to us through this, our worship,	1:52
	our music, our singing, our preaching.	1:56
	We wait in Your presence,	2:01
	Amen.	2:04
	(organ playing music)	2:09
	(choir singing inaudibly)	2:42
	Let us make our personal confession before God	5:57
	who knows who we are and loves us	6:01
	and frees us from our bondage,	6:05
	when we acknowledge that we need to be freed.	6:07
	Let us pray.	6:11
	(silence)	6:14
	And now let us make our corporate confession to God.	6:34
	Almighty and most merciful God,	6:39
	we acknowledge and confess	6:43
	that we have sinned against You	6:45
	and thought word and deed	6:48
	that we have not loved you with all our heart and soul,	6:51
	with all our mind and strength,	6:56
	and that we have not loved our neighbor as ourselves,	6:59
	we beseech you O God,	7:04
	to be forgiving to what we have been,	7:06
	to help us amend what we are	7:10
	and of Your mercy to direct what we shall be.	7:13
	So that the love of goodness	7:18
	may ever be first in our hearts.	7:20
	And we may follow into our lives end	7:24
	in the steps of Jesus Christ our Lord,	7:27
	Amen.	7:31
	Believe the Good News that God is loving and forgiving	7:33
	and live as forgiving, forgiven people.	7:38
	Moving into the future with hope.	7:42
	(organ playing)	7:53
	(choir singing hymn inaudible)	8:09
Clergywoman	Hear the readings from our Holy Scriptures.	9:15
	First from Jeremiah, the seventh chapter,	9:18
	"Behold,	9:23
	you trust in deceptive words to no avail,	9:24
	will you steal, murder, commit adultery,	9:29
	swear flaw, swear falsely,	9:33
	burn incense to Baal	9:37
	and go after other gods that you have not known.	9:39
	And then come and stand before Me in this house,	9:42
	which is called by my name and say, 'We are delivered.'	9:46
	Only to go on doing all those abominations.	9:51
	Has this house, which is called by my name,	9:56
	become a den of robbers in your eyes?	10:00
	Behold,	10:04
	I myself have seen it says the Lord."	10:05
	And the reading from 1 Corinthians, the twelfth verse...	10:11
	The 12th chapter, the first through the eleventh verses,	10:16
	"Now concerning spiritual gifts brethren,	10:22
	I do not want you to be uninformed.	10:25
	You know that when you were heathen,	10:28
	you were led astray to dumb idols,	10:31
	however you may have been moved.	10:33
	Therefore I want you to understand	10:36
	that no one speaking by the spirit of God ever says,	10:38
	'Jesus be cursed.'	10:42
	And no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,'	10:44
	except by the Holy Spirit.	10:48
	Now there are variety of gifts, for the same Spirit.	10:51
	And there are varieties of service for the same Lord.	10:55
	And there are varieties of working but it is the same God	10:59
	who inspires them all in everyone.	11:03
	To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit,	11:07
	for the common good.	11:10
	To one is given to the Spirit the utterance of wisdom	11:13
	and to another, the utterance of knowledge	11:17
	according to the same Spirit.	11:20
	To another, faith by the same Spirit.	11:22
	To another, gifts of healing by the one Spirit.	11:26
	To another, the working of miracles.	11:30
	To another, prophecy.	11:33
	To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits.	11:35
	To another, various kinds of tongues.	11:40
	To another, the interpretation of tongues.	11:44
	All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit,	11:48
	who a portion to each one individually, as He wills."	11:53
	Let us stand for the reading of the Gospel lesson.	11:59
	From the 19th chapter of Luke,	12:09
	"And when He grew near, and saw the city,	12:13
	He wept over it saying, 'Would that even today you know	12:16
	the things that make for peace.	12:21
	But now they are hid from your eyes.	12:24
	For the day He shall come upon you,	12:27
	when your enemies will be cast up a bank about you,	12:29
	and surround you and hem you in on every side,	12:33
	and dash you to the ground.	12:37
	You and your children with you in you,	12:39
	and they will not leave one stone upon another in you.	12:42
	Because you did not know the time of your visitation.'"	12:46
	"And He entered the temple and began to drive out	12:50
	those who sold, saying to them,	12:53
	'It is written My house shall be house of prayer,	12:55
	but you have made it a den of robbers.'	12:59
	And He was teaching daily in the temple."	13:03
	May the Word of God be heard to us through this reading.	13:07
	Thanks be to you, O God.	13:11
	(organ playing hymn)	13:15
	(choir singing inaudible)	13:29
Clergywoman	Let us make our corporate	14:02
	affirmation of faith.	14:03
-	[Congregation & Clergywoman] We are not alone,	14:06
	we live in God's world, we believe in God,	14:08
	Who has created and is creating.	14:12
	Who has come in the truly human Jesus.	14:15
	To reconcile and make new.	14:19
	Who works in us and others, through the Spirit.	14:22
	We trust God, who calls us to be the Church.	14:25
	To celebrate life and its fullness,	14:30
	to love and serve others.	14:33
	To seek justice and resist evil.	14:36
	To proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,	14:39
	our judge and our hope.	14:42
	In life and death and life beyond death,	14:45
	God is with us.	14:50
	We are not alone.	14:52
	Thanks be to God.	14:54
Clergywoman	The Lord be with you.	14:56
	(congregation speaking inaudibly)	14:59
Clergywoman	Let us pray.	15:00
	O God,	15:09
	we pray to You	15:11
	and call You by name.	15:13
	But we cannot lay hold of You	15:16
	or comprehend You.	15:19
	You are greater than any name.	15:21
	Your power and Your love	15:24
	and Your creativity, is beyond our comprehension.	15:28
	We can only bow in awe and adoration.	15:34
	But we marvel and give thanks O God,	15:39
	that You who have no beginning, no end,	15:42
	who brought into being all that is,	15:47
	cares for us, loves us,	15:51
	seeks us, yearns over us,	15:55
	because without this care,	15:59
	we cannot truly become who You want us to be.	16:02
	We are thankful O God,	16:08
	that we do not be alone with our joy and our pain,	16:10
	with our hurts and our anger and our concerns	16:14
	that You hear and respond to us,	16:19
	through our prayers and through Your people.	16:22
	So, O God, hear our prayers of intercessions.	16:26
	For all who have to live with injustice,	16:32
	who are caught up in an inhuman system	16:36
	who cannot make any headway under it.	16:40
	We pray for all groups and persons	16:44
	who are working to make theses systems more human	16:46
	or to change the system.	16:51
	For people who work in social agencies	16:54
	and the courts and prisons as lawyers and judges.	16:57
	For those who work in government and educations.	17:01
	For those who are prophetic	17:05
	and show us our destructive actions.	17:07
	Those who are courageous, who take personal risk	17:10
	to bring about necessary changes.	17:14
	All need Your love and Your support O God.	17:18
	We pray for those we love, who are hurting,	17:23
	who are lonely,	17:27
	who have no hope, who see no future for them.	17:30
	Those who are in great memo and physical pain.	17:34
	Those who walk in darkness.	17:39
	Those who have burdens which see more	17:42
	than any human can bear.	17:46
	Hear now our prayers that we lift personally	17:49
	in this time of silence.	17:53
	O God,	18:06
	You can heal all hurts,	18:07
	You who can give life and hope and comfort and courage	18:10
	to all persons.	18:15
	Respond to our supplications.	18:18
	You, O God, are the God of our parents,	18:22
	the God of all people.	18:26
	You even entrusted to us the task of caring for this world.	18:29
	We ask You now to bless our bodies,	18:34
	so that we may pass on life	18:37
	that is good and whole and full.	18:40
	We ask You to bless our hands and minds	18:45
	so we do not build a world that is alien from You.	18:49
	We pray for people who come after us,	18:54
	that we do give them a stone instead of bread.	18:58
	That we do not leave them war,	19:02
	but freedom and happiness and peace.	19:03
	And now O God,	19:08
	hear us as we pray the prayer	19:10
	that our Lord Jesus taught us,	19:13
-	[Congregation & Clergywoman] Our Father	19:17
	who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.	19:18
	Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done	19:22
	on earth as it is in heaven.	19:26
	Give us the day, our daily bread.	19:29
	And forgive us our trespasses,	19:31
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	19:34
	And lead us not into temptation,	19:39
	but deliver us from evil.	19:41
	For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory	19:44
	for ever and ever.	19:48
	Amen.	19:50
Clergywoman	We welcome you to Duke Chapel	19:53
	on this very hot and sultry morning.	19:55
	And we having a special welcome to Frances Redding,	19:57
	who will sing the solo, during the offertory anthem.	20:00
	And to Bob Parkins on his first Sunday as our organist.	20:04
	We look forward to our work with him in the coming year.	20:08
	And to Paul Mickey, who will bring us the Good News today.	20:12
	Welcome to our pulpit.	20:15
Paul	Our text this morning	20:31
	is taken from a sliver of verse tucked away	20:33
	in the Gospel reading,	20:36
	"With that even today you knew for the things	20:39
	that make for peace."	20:42
	Stepping stones to eternity.	20:47
	Jeremiah, Jesus, St. Paul,	20:50
	Jerusalem, Corinth,	20:55
	Durham, Duke.	20:59
	Our Scripture readings say it.	21:03
	Though diverse in location,	21:06
	history and culture, we are all related.	21:08
	We receive the gifts of God's grace.	21:13
	Most of us are energetic	21:17
	and like to think of ourselves as creative.	21:19
	We like to put in to practice the things that we know.	21:23
	And therein is the danger.	21:28
	Our zealous temptation to put faith into rigorous work	21:33
	becomes a form of robbery.	21:37
	Oh, it does not occur in terms of dollars and cents.	21:39
	But our zeal robs God's strengths, and gifts	21:45
	and graces to the church.	21:48
	How can it be that grace becomes robbery?	21:52
	The footpath of grace leads from Jerusalem	21:58
	to Corinth to Durham.	22:02
	It is God's struggle through history and upon the cross	22:05
	to bend our ear and our knee,	22:09
	and remind us of the rich gifts of His grace.	22:13
	A grace that is greater than all our sins and innovations.	22:18
	So let us walk together along that pathway	22:25
	for a few minutes this morning.	22:27
	We'll be watching for our relationship with God	22:31
	in three areas:	22:33
	robbery,	22:36
	redemption	22:38
	and release .	22:40
	First robbery.	22:42
	The childhood of cops and robbers,	22:46
	urged us to act upon a moral and legal belief	22:49
	with perhaps some theological grace notes.	22:53
	That right and wrong, good and bad,	22:57
	cops and robbers, God and sinners were clearly identified	23:02
	by category class and type.	23:07
	But we are astounded, when we turn to the writings	23:12
	of Jeremiah and Luke.	23:16
	Because here we find the prophet and Jesus	23:19
	calling the ordained clergy, the keepers of the temple,	23:22
	the priestly families, robbers.	23:26
	It would support our cops and robbers notion's here	23:31
	if we found the clergy guilty of doing violence	23:34
	to person or property.	23:37
	Clearly that would be a wrong and everyone would agree.	23:40
	But the Scriptures tell us far more than that.	23:46
	What was the situation of which Jeremiah and Jesus speak?	23:51
	It was a fairly simple and benign practice.	23:57
	Hebrew law called for animal sacrifices	24:01
	that would be pure and unblemished.	24:04
	There was one temple for the people,	24:08
	and that was located in the city of Jerusalem,	24:10
	for the pilgrim from the outer banks	24:14
	or the outer reaches of the province,	24:17
	the temple trek was a long arduous and dangerous one.	24:20
	In addition to other dangers,	24:26
	the trip itself threatened to dirty and defy the sheep	24:27
	or other sacrificial animals in transit.	24:32
	This would make a hopeful sacrifice impossible	24:37
	and sin would be unatoned.	24:41
	The pilgrim would be condemned	24:45
	by impurity and hopelessness.	24:47
	So in the days before air conditioned sheep vans	24:52
	or transistor radios,	24:56
	that might warn of air raids and hail storms	24:58
	that would blemish the animal sacrifice	25:02
	on its final journey,	25:04
	priestly families offered a service.	25:07
	Selling unblemished animals in the portico of the temple.	25:11
	Initially perhaps this practice	25:17
	was done on a cost-only basis.	25:19
	But as the need for this service increased,	25:22
	so did the temple overhead expenses.	25:26
	Why not? Thought the rulers	25:30
	continue the service on a cost plus 10% basis.	25:31
	This would offset operating cost.	25:37
	Then sooner or later technology improved	25:41
	and the equivalent of acrylic paint	25:44
	and double knit weaves came to pass.	25:47
	Why not renovate the temple and refurbish the wardrobes?	25:50
	And grant the clergy a pay increase of 5 or 6%.	25:54
	After all it had been 87 years since pay increase	25:58
	and the purchasing power had declined by fully a third.	26:02
	Fine.	26:07
	Approved.	26:09
	The increase revenues would come from the unblemished	26:11
	or nearly unblemished animals.	26:14
	There maybe a few factory seconds here and there.	26:17
	The consumer worshiper price	26:22
	would be cost plus 25%.	26:24
	Certainly all of this was for a worthy cause.	26:28
	But this made Jesus weep	26:35
	and cleanse the temple of such practices.	26:38
	More incriminating in the Book of Jeremiah,	26:43
	was the use of another child's game by the priests.	26:45
	Remember hide-and-seek?	26:50
	There was a safe home base	26:54
	and those hiding would seek to gain the protection	26:58
	of the home base before being found.	27:00
	Safe arrival would be announced by the phrase,	27:04
	'Home free.'	27:07
	And so it was for Jeremiah.	27:10
	The priests had begun to exploit the people.	27:12
	When a serious challenge would arise,	27:16
	they would run for the safe home base of the temple.	27:18
	Next came the childish chant to man and God,	27:25
	Jeremiah 7:4, "This is the temple of the Lord,	27:29
	this is the temple of the Lord,	27:33
	this is the temple of the Lord.	27:36
	Nobody can touch us here."	27:38
	But God touched there,	27:41
	the temple was destroyed,	27:44
	the nation was carried into captivity.	27:47
	Now in Luke's Gospel some 500 years after the return	27:53
	from the earlier captivity,	27:56
	but barely 40 years before the destruction	27:58
	of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.	28:02
	The priest were more circumspect.	28:06
	The Roman occupation armies were looking over one shoulder,	28:09
	and the populous over the other.	28:13
	They didn't play hide-and-seek in the temple anymore.	28:17
	But still they were working the unblemished sheep market	28:22
	for a tidy profit.	28:26
	The sacrifices originally were to atone for sin.	28:28
	Now thanks to applied grace, the selling of sheep,	28:34
	this means that grace itself was defiled.	28:38
	This was not the blemishes of lower animals,	28:42
	but of higher priests.	28:46
	The chant, 'A sacrifice is a sacrifice, is a sacrifice,'	28:49
	might be heard.	28:53
	A sacrifice is not a simple vain playful act,	28:56
	it is a serious theological means for relating the pilgrim,	29:01
	the populous, the believer to God.	29:06
	Its is not an end in itself.	29:09
	We have robbed God, we have applied the gifts of grace	29:13
	to our own ends.	29:18
	The story is told of the American Evangelist,	29:21
	George Whitefield.	29:24
	One day he engaged a miner in conversation.	29:27
	Turning to the man Whitefield asked,	29:31
	"What do you believe sir?"	29:33
	After some thought, the miner replied,	29:37
	"I believe what my church believes."	29:40
	"Well sir," said Whitefield,	29:44
	"What is it that your church believes?"	29:46
	"Well sir, my church believes what I believes."	29:50
	And Whitefield pressed on,	29:56
	"Well what is it that both you and your church believe?"	29:58
	Quickly the response,	30:03
	"Well sir we believe the same thing."	30:04
	We want our church, our beliefs and our gods so close to us.	30:08
	That it would be as obvious to us	30:14
	and to others as it was to the miner	30:18
	that there is no difference	30:20
	between what I believe and want and do	30:22
	and the will and grace of God.	30:26
	The miners quip, or confession,	30:28
	suggest that the church made no difference in his life.	30:32
	This too would be a benign robbery of grace.	30:36
	The priest and pilgrim relationship with the temple	30:41
	was more malignant, then benign.	30:44
	The focus of temple activity had shifted too dramatically	30:48
	from the altar to the alcove.	30:51
	Again the intention may have been well meaning	30:55
	but the result may Jesus weep and angry.	30:57
	We are to enter the house of God to worship God.	31:04
	When we fail to see that as the center of our relation	31:08
	to God's grace,	31:11
	we rob God and the joy of our salvation.	31:13
	The community of believers is called together	31:17
	to worship God.	31:20
	That is the distinctive core or dogma of our community.	31:23
	It will require support and protection.	31:28
	We do not play hide-and-seek with the house of God,	31:32
	or cops and robbers with revelation and grace.	31:35
	It is not child's play,	31:40
	nor is God's will easily discern.	31:43
	Our good intentions is they become intense	31:48
	can become demonic.	31:50
	In 1 Corinthians 12, the question of the privilege,	31:53
	and the practice of the gifts of the Spirit arise.	31:57
	In verse 3, the confusion of good intentions,	32:02
	has become demonic.	32:05
	How could anyone confuse cursing Jesus	32:07
	and professing Jesus?	32:11
	William Barkley and his commentary on this passage	32:14
	makes this interesting suggestion.	32:18
	In the zealous passion of praising God,	32:21
	the expression, especially where tongue speaking occurred,	32:24
	would come out opposite the worshipers intention.	32:29
	Instead of praising Jesus, which was their intention,	32:33
	the Christ was accursed.	32:37
	This notion suggest the truth that weighs upon	32:40
	our technological and pragmatic sophistication of today.	32:44
	When you push something to far it breaks into opposite.	32:49
	Praise becomes a curse,	32:55
	atoning sacrifice becomes an abomination,	32:57
	creative application become destructive.	33:01
	Robert Nisbet, an American Sociologist	33:07
	gave the John Dewey lectures in 1970,	33:10
	later published as "The Degradation of the American Dogma,"	33:14
	of the academic dogma,	33:19
	The American University from 1945 to 1970.	33:20
	His thesis is that the university is the last	33:26
	of the great institutions formed during the Middle Ages.	33:29
	It is founded upon the dogma,	33:34
	and here dogma means to seem good,	33:36
	that knowledge is important.	33:41
	This is academic dogma and requires a guild of scholars	33:44
	and academic community to provide a supporting context	33:49
	which its dogma, the common belief	33:53
	that does not require constant scrutiny.	33:57
	Nesbit says, "Knowledge is sacred and there is an inverse	34:01
	ratio between prestige of knowledge and its practicability.	34:06
	Page 31.	34:11
	There was the predication of service to the community	34:13
	but the service was indirect.	34:16
	And so curriculum on curriculum was derived	34:19
	from the learned disciplines.	34:22
	But then came the opportunity for direct services	34:26
	and the traffic in sheep vending began.	34:29
	Oh the language system was different to be sure.	34:32
	But the activity and the consequences were the same.	34:35
	The university took grants from governments	34:39
	and foundations which went to individual members	34:42
	of the guild or to the priestly family.	34:45
	Professors were thrust into the unwanted position	34:49
	of being entrepreneurs.	34:52
	Academic capitalism according to Professor Nesbit,	34:55
	was born in traditional service agencies were bypassed.	34:58
	Scholars became managers of research enterprises.	35:04
	Now here was a good intentions undercutting the integrity,	35:10
	faith and dogma of the institution,	35:13
	whether it be temple or university.	35:17
	The irony is,	35:20
	that it is an applied robbery.	35:22
	Now our final illustrations here.	35:26
	Modern medicine with all its sophisticative instrumentation	35:29
	has done wonders to prolong and extend life.	35:32
	But a good service push too far breaks into its opposite.	35:37
	Prolonging life at times can be a robbery of death.	35:43
	A fear that God as Lord of Death, as well as life.	35:48
	This I would submit is one reason for the	35:53
	accumulating, resentment and hostility	35:56
	by laypeople toward physicians and contributes	35:59
	to the increase of malpractice judgements.	36:02
	Compulsive drive to extend so called life at all cost	36:08
	to deny death makes death, not life,	36:12
	the gracious gift circumventing a modern technology	36:16
	which often appears to seek to thwart natural processes.	36:20
	Applied robbery.	36:26
	It may be the priest, the worshiper, the scholar,	36:28
	the miner, the physician who in all goodwill	36:32
	allow preoccupation with the practical application	36:38
	of the good.	36:41
	To jeopardize and dethrone the higher good which is served.	36:43
	Application that robs from the whole of God's gift	36:49
	of salvation and redemption of life,	36:52
	is sin and destructive.	36:55
	But all that occurs is not robbery,	37:00
	we move onto that second word, redemption.	37:03
	The prophet Jeremiah engaged in what we can be described	37:08
	as the original preach-in.	37:11
	His interest was to kick upon the hard and callous hearts	37:14
	of the priests.	37:18
	To allow the sweet spirit of God to enter the temple	37:20
	in the lives of the worshipers.	37:23
	To put away childish games of hide-and-seek,	37:26
	cops and robbers,	37:30
	to proclaim the redemptive compassionate Word of God.	37:32
	We are all to willing to sacrifice redemption and worship	37:40
	upon an altar of program and practical application.	37:43
	As a community where the church or university,	37:49
	we are called to be Christian or Jew or scholar	37:52
	or whatever, and that involves a function,	37:56
	a doing.	38:01
	But as Christian, as Jew or scholar,	38:02
	we cannot do everything for everyone.	38:05
	There are restraints and limitations placed upon us	38:09
	in order to protect as well as express our identity.	38:13
	That is who we are and what we do.	38:18
	As a community of believers,	38:23
	we are called together to worship God.	38:25
	To proclaim His redemptive grace for us.	38:28
	Redemption, not program, is to be a religious dogma	38:32
	in the center of our community.	38:36
	However temptation is ever before us.	38:39
	Following a painful captivity,	38:44
	Israel has come again and once again and yield	38:46
	to the temptation of temple pragmatics.	38:50
	Jesus drew near the city of Jerusalem and wept over it.	38:53
	For God's grace has been quietly displaced.	38:59
	God slips out of the foothills of human existence	39:06
	and draws near to the city of our lives,	39:09
	with all our bustle and activity, our good intention	39:12
	and disappointing victories.	39:18
	His concern for us is what it was for Jerusalem.	39:20
	Would that even today,	39:25
	you knew what the things that make for peace.	39:26
	But now they are hid from your eyes.	39:31
	Such yearning, such compassion for us.	39:35
	His prayer of peace is for us.	39:40
	It took Him to the cross to be the great amen.	39:44
	Some eyes open, some hearts became receptive	39:48
	and redemption has been confirmed.	39:53
	Truly the Christ stands at the edge	39:56
	and in the center of our lives,	40:00
	extending the compassionate hand of redemption	40:01
	to those who will receive.	40:05
	What is our trust readiness with the Christ?	40:10
	How ready are we to trust?	40:14
	To put aside sheep, programs,	40:17
	grants, instrumentation and machinery.	40:21
	To trust God to redeem us by His grace.	40:26
	That is God's struggle with us,	40:32
	His lovely and stubborn creatures.	40:34
	To love us and to share with us, His grace.	40:38
	Then we come to that third word,	40:44
	the word of release.	40:47
	Finally we recall that applied robbery	40:49
	is a zealous over application of good intentions.	40:52
	That redemption begins as our eyes are open	40:56
	by what John Wesley called, God's prevenient,	41:00
	or preparing grace.	41:04
	But our release is not granted because the eyeballs	41:07
	of our Spiritual discernment pop open.	41:10
	We are not free or released to go our own way,	41:14
	doing our own thing.	41:18
	That is what happened at the Little Mission Church	41:21
	at Corinth and the congregation was falling apart.	41:23
	The temptation to lapse into idolizing are own gift	41:29
	and scorning another's,	41:33
	was reliving the destructive acts called to our attention	41:35
	and the text from Jeremiah and Luke.	41:39
	The gift of God's grace becomes over shadowed	41:43
	of the pragmatic values and license of my own gift.	41:46
	Release follows redemption as day follow night.	41:53
	The gift of grace through faith is for the common good.	41:58
	There are diverse expressions of redemption	42:03
	among the individual gifts.	42:06
	But release is from individual pragmatism,	42:09
	for the common good, for the community of faith.	42:13
	We are all members of the Body of Christ.	42:17
	The triune God works all in all.	42:22
	We are released from pragmatism to peace.	42:26
	It does not have to or to make money to be satisfied.	42:31
	We are not to be called being spiritual	42:37
	or for that matter academic entrepreneurs.	42:40
	We are called to be faithful	42:44
	and to know what makes for peace.	42:46
	We are released from saying, accursed be Jesus,	42:50
	to affirming, Jesus is Lord.	42:55
	We are released from subtle applied robbery,	42:59
	to drink of the one Spirit.	43:04
	We are released from compulsive childish ways	43:07
	of playing church games, to walk in the fullness of grace.	43:11
	Amazing grace how sweet the sound,	43:19
	we'll be singing that folk hymn momentarily.	43:23
	It is amazing grace that cuts throughout our pragmatism	43:27
	and compulsiveness.	43:31
	To bring us the sweet sounds of praise,	43:33
	that break in upon the divine weeping over Jerusalem	43:36
	and our lives.	43:41
	This is a hymn of confession and adoration.	43:44
	We've no less days to sing God's praise	43:48
	then when we first begun.	43:52
	These are the words of one who has been released	43:54
	from applied robbery,	43:57
	through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.	44:00
	Released to a prayerful peace.	44:03
	May this simple hymn be a simple way	44:07
	to sing of our redemption and release.	44:10
	Let us pray.	44:15
	O God we pray that are concern to ply	44:20
	and to be active in our life in Thy Spirit.	44:23
	May be caught up by that larger Spirit	44:28
	which would give us peace of mind.	44:31
	As we are called together to celebrate Thy presence.	44:35
	And to live in a community of faith and of belief.	44:39
	In Christ name,	44:45
	and for His sake,	44:46
	Amen.	44:49
	(organ playing "Amazing Grace")	44:52
	(choir singing "Amazing Grace" inaudible)	45:24

Item Info

Title:

Paul A. Mickey - "Applied Robbery or Prayerful Peace" (August 3, 1975)

Description:

The preacher suggests that Independence Day is an opportunity to pause and both celebrate our national successes and repent of our national sins. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: "On every Fourth of July, and in every day of our lives, we have to pray Kipling's line: 'O Lord of Hosts, be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget.'"

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4hx19r9b

Date:

August 3, 1975

Speaker:

Mickey, Paul A.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0785
ref6770_1es
uachapelsermaud
duke:628063
dcrau002750
ark:/87924/r4hx19r9b
1b1d327b-7eda-4640-913b-9f4bff54e162

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

Related Resources:

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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Paul A. Mickey - "Applied Robbery or Prayerful Peace" (August 3, 1975)

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Duke University Archives