Samuel Proctor - Sermon Untitled (January 15, 1995)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(organ music) | 0:00 | |
- | Good morning, we'd like to welcome you to this service | 0:55 |
of worship at Duke Chapel. | 0:58 | |
I'd like to call several announcements to your attention. | 1:00 | |
We're glad to welcome back the Duke Chapel Choir today. | 1:03 | |
The choir has been, of course, on recess break, | 1:07 | |
and half the choir members have just returned | 1:09 | |
from a fabulous tour to England. | 1:12 | |
It was a wonderful opportunity to be a part of that, | 1:14 | |
and the wonderful music that they presented | 1:17 | |
throughout England. | 1:20 | |
We're glad to welcome them back. | 1:21 | |
We'd also like to call on a more serious note, | 1:24 | |
to your attention, that one of the freshman choir members, | 1:27 | |
Tara Grove, was injured in a car wreck here on campus | 1:30 | |
last week, and we ask you to keep her in your prayers. | 1:34 | |
Our preacher today is the Reverend Doctor Samuel Proctor, | 1:38 | |
a distinguished author and preacher and member | 1:42 | |
of the Divinity School faculty here at Duke. | 1:45 | |
We're glad to welcome him again to our pulpit. | 1:48 | |
Tonight is the university Martin Luther King service, | 1:51 | |
and Dr. Bernice King, who is Dr. King's daughter, | 1:54 | |
will be the keynote speaker. | 1:58 | |
That service is at six PM | 2:00 | |
and we hope you will be able to return for that. | 2:02 | |
Please stand as as we continue our worship | 2:05 | |
with the call to worship. | 2:07 | |
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you. | 2:12 | |
Congregation | And also with you. | 2:15 |
- | The splendor of Christ shines upon us. | 2:17 |
Congregation | Praise the Lord. | 2:21 |
(organ music) | 2:23 | |
(echoing choral music) | 3:24 | |
- | Let us pray. | 8:01 |
Bless us, O God, with the reverent sense of your presence. | 8:05 | |
That we may be at peace, | 8:10 | |
and may worship you with all our mind and spirit. | 8:13 | |
Through Jesus Christ, our lord, amen. | 8:17 | |
You may be seated. | 8:22 | |
- | Let us pray for illumination. | 8:31 |
Open our hearts and minds, O God, | 8:34 | |
by the power of your Holy Spirit, | 8:37 | |
so that as the word is read and proclaimed, | 8:40 | |
we may hear with joy what you say to us this day. | 8:44 | |
Amen. | 8:49 | |
Here begins the 62nd chapter | 8:53 | |
of the Book of the Prophet Isaiah. | 8:56 | |
For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. | 8:59 | |
And for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest. | 9:03 | |
Until her vindication goes forth as brightness, | 9:06 | |
and her salvation as a burning torch. | 9:10 | |
The nation shall see your vindication, | 9:14 | |
and all the kings your glory. | 9:17 | |
And you shall be called by a new name | 9:20 | |
which the mouth of the Lord will give. | 9:22 | |
You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the Lord, | 9:26 | |
and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. | 9:30 | |
You shall no more be termed forsaken | 9:34 | |
and your land shall no more be termed desolate. | 9:37 | |
But you shall be called my delight is in her, | 9:42 | |
and your land married, for the Lord delights in you, | 9:45 | |
and your land shall be married. | 9:50 | |
For as the young man marries a virgin, | 9:53 | |
so shall your sons marry you, | 9:56 | |
and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, | 9:59 | |
so shall your God rejoice over you. | 10:03 | |
This is the word of the Lord. | 10:07 | |
Congregation | Thanks be to God. | 10:11 |
- | The psalm appointed for this day is Psalm 36, | 10:22 |
found on page 771 in your hymnal. | 10:25 | |
Please stand and join in singing the psalm | 10:28 | |
and Gloria responsively. | 10:30 | |
♪ Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens ♪ | 10:40 | |
♪ Your faithfulness to the clouds ♪ | 10:47 | |
(choral music) | 10:52 | |
♪ O God, how precious is your steadfast love ♪ | 11:10 | |
♪ All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings ♪ | 11:16 | |
(choral music) | 11:23 | |
♪ For you is the fountain of life, ♪ | 11:37 | |
♪ In your light do we see light ♪ | 11:42 | |
(choral music) | 11:47 | |
♪ All glory be to you, creator, ♪ | 12:03 | |
♪ And to Jesus Christ, our savior ♪ | 12:06 | |
(choral music) | 12:10 | |
♪ As it was 'ere time began ♪ | 12:18 | |
(choral music) | 12:23 | |
You may be seated. | 12:32 | |
- | Here begins the second chapter | 12:42 |
of the Gospel According to Saint John. | 12:44 | |
On the third day, there was a marriage at Cana, | 12:48 | |
in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. | 12:51 | |
Jesus also was invited to the marriage with his disciples. | 12:55 | |
When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him: | 13:00 | |
They have no wine. | 13:03 | |
And Jesus said to her: O woman, what have you to do with me? | 13:05 | |
My hour has not yet come. | 13:10 | |
His mother said to the servants: Do whatever he tells you. | 13:13 | |
Now, six stone jars were standing there, | 13:17 | |
for the Jewish rights of purification, | 13:20 | |
each holding 20 or 30 gallons. | 13:23 | |
Jesus said to them: Fill the jars with water. | 13:26 | |
And they filled them up to the brim. | 13:30 | |
He said to them: Now, draw some out | 13:33 | |
and take it to the steward of the feast. | 13:35 | |
So they took it. | 13:38 | |
When the steward of the feast tasted the water, | 13:40 | |
now become wine, and did not know where it came from, | 13:42 | |
though the servants who had drawn the water knew, | 13:46 | |
the steward of the feast called the bridegroom | 13:49 | |
and said to him: Every man serves the good wine first, | 13:51 | |
and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine. | 13:57 | |
But you have kept the good wine until now. | 14:01 | |
This is the first of his signs | 14:05 | |
Jesus did at Cana and Galilee, and manifested his glory. | 14:08 | |
And his disciples believed in him. | 14:14 | |
This is the word of the Lord. | 14:18 | |
(murmuring response) | 14:21 | |
(reverberating choral music) | 14:42 | |
Here begins the 12th chapter of the First Letter | 20:48 | |
of Saint Paul to the Corinthians. | 20:51 | |
Now, concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, | 20:55 | |
I would not have you be ignorant. | 20:59 | |
You know that when you were heathen, you were led astray | 21:01 | |
to dumb idols, however you may have been moved. | 21:04 | |
Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking | 21:08 | |
by the spirit of God ever says: Jesus be cursed. | 21:12 | |
And no one can say Jesus is Lord, except by the Holy Spirit. | 21:16 | |
Now, there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit. | 21:22 | |
And there are varieties of service, but the same Lord. | 21:27 | |
And there are varieties of working, | 21:30 | |
but it is the same God who inspires them all, in everyone. | 21:32 | |
To each is given the manifestation | 21:37 | |
of the spirit for the common good. | 21:39 | |
To one is given through the spirit the utterance of wisdom. | 21:42 | |
To another, the utterance of knowledge, | 21:46 | |
according to the same spirit. | 21:48 | |
To another, faith by the same spirit. | 21:51 | |
To another, gifts of healing by the one spirit. | 21:54 | |
To another, the working of miracles. | 21:57 | |
To another, prophecy. | 22:00 | |
To another, the ability to distinguish between spirits. | 22:02 | |
To another, various kinds of tongues. | 22:06 | |
To another, the interpretation of tongues. | 22:09 | |
All these are inspired by one and the same spirit, | 22:13 | |
who apportions to each one individually, as he wills. | 22:17 | |
This is the word of the Lord. | 22:23 | |
(murmuring response) | 22:26 | |
- | I'm very grateful to be worshiping in this sacred | 22:39 |
and awesomely beautiful chapel once again. | 22:43 | |
And I give thanks to God for this privilege, | 22:48 | |
and give thanks to Dean Willimon for inviting me. | 22:52 | |
To Reverend Brazzel and Mr. Hammond for their generous | 22:56 | |
words of welcome today. | 23:01 | |
I really did not expect to see all of you here today, | 23:03 | |
because of the rain. | 23:06 | |
I'm a Baptist, and while we talk a great deal | 23:08 | |
about the efficacy of a lot of water, | 23:12 | |
we don't wanna get wet but once. | 23:15 | |
(laughing) | 23:18 | |
Isaiah chapter 62, verses one through three. | 23:23 | |
For Zion's sake, I will not keep silent. | 23:33 | |
For Jerusalem's sake, I will not remain quiet. | 23:39 | |
Until her righteousness shines out like the dawn. | 23:45 | |
Her salvation, like a blazing torch. | 23:49 | |
The nations will see your righteousness, | 23:54 | |
and all kings your glory. | 23:58 | |
You will be called by a new name, | 24:02 | |
that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. | 24:05 | |
You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand, | 24:08 | |
a royal diadem in the hand of your God. | 24:12 | |
These majestic words of the ancient prophet ring with hope, | 24:19 | |
and high expectation. | 24:25 | |
He is reaching for the drooping spirits | 24:28 | |
of a broken-hearted people, | 24:32 | |
who are trying to put their lives together, | 24:35 | |
returning after two generations of captivity | 24:38 | |
in the land of Babylon. | 24:42 | |
The prophet knows everything that they know. | 24:46 | |
He has the same facts that they have about life. | 24:50 | |
But where they put a period, he puts a semicolon. | 24:55 | |
And where they cease in despair, he picks up with hope. | 25:01 | |
And so, in the light of these words from Isaiah, | 25:09 | |
let us think for a moment on the prophet's vision, | 25:14 | |
and the real world. | 25:18 | |
The Bible is a compendium of 66 books, | 25:22 | |
and we often forget that. | 25:26 | |
These books are describing the God-human encounter, | 25:29 | |
for a period of some three to 4,000 years. | 25:33 | |
It is a periscopic view of the human spirit. | 25:38 | |
The human spirit, reaching up toward the divine, | 25:42 | |
and the eternal God bending low toward humanity. | 25:46 | |
That's what it's all about. | 25:51 | |
And these inspired writings describe to us | 25:53 | |
both the high points of that encounter, and the low points. | 25:56 | |
The low points that are reflected across these centuries. | 26:02 | |
The encounter culminates for us who are Christians | 26:07 | |
in the person of Jesus, who was born in an humble | 26:10 | |
carpenter's family, went about doing good, | 26:13 | |
preached good news to the poor, healed the sick, | 26:16 | |
called demons out of suffering little children, | 26:20 | |
challenged the empty religion of his time, | 26:23 | |
and was executed on a Roman cross after a mock trial. | 26:26 | |
And his name is sung today in a thousand tongues, | 26:32 | |
because death was defeated, and eternal life | 26:35 | |
was made secure by his triumph over mortality. | 26:40 | |
And throughout this holy history, | 26:46 | |
this (speaking foreign language), | 26:49 | |
there was the prophet, standing tall above the din | 26:51 | |
of the people, affirming the vertical dimension | 26:56 | |
of our existence. | 27:00 | |
One way to study the Bible is to ask | 27:03 | |
a question about these prophets. | 27:05 | |
Who are they, anyway? | 27:07 | |
Who are these people who come rising up out of the mist | 27:10 | |
and the darkness, speaking with so much authority | 27:14 | |
in the name of God? | 27:18 | |
Do they have a sixth sense that allows them access | 27:20 | |
to truth and insights that are hidden from the rest of us? | 27:24 | |
What makes them so authentic, | 27:28 | |
and should we credit them with special license, | 27:31 | |
because they tell of their extraordinary experiences? | 27:34 | |
We're here today in remembering one of the prophets | 27:39 | |
of our own time, Martin Luther King Jr. | 27:43 | |
What gave him such rare stamina? | 27:48 | |
Such integration and harmony and coherence | 27:53 | |
in his ministry and his message? | 27:57 | |
Notice how many of these prophets take the time | 28:01 | |
to tell us of rare moments of spiritual intensity | 28:04 | |
that wafted them to the realms of the ethereal, | 28:08 | |
and gave them utterance with words | 28:12 | |
uncommon among ordinary mortals. | 28:15 | |
Remember how the prophet Isaiah told us of his call. | 28:19 | |
He tells us that it was when King Uzziah died. | 28:23 | |
Uzziah, a king who had performed so well, | 28:30 | |
and one who was close to Isaiah's family. | 28:34 | |
He said that when Uzziah died, he saw the Lord. | 28:38 | |
And then he carries us deeply into his innermost secrets | 28:42 | |
and shares with us a mystical experience. | 28:46 | |
I like to read that call of Isaiah. | 28:50 | |
He saw seraphim flying about the temple, crying: | 28:53 | |
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God almighty! | 28:57 | |
He saw the temple door posts shaking, | 29:01 | |
and the place was filled with smoke. | 29:03 | |
Young Isaiah cried out: Woe is me, for I am undone. | 29:06 | |
I am a man of unclean lips, | 29:10 | |
and I dwell among a people of unclean lips. | 29:13 | |
You see, it was not just ecstasy. | 29:16 | |
It was commitment and a calling that came through | 29:18 | |
in this experience. | 29:22 | |
He said: Now my eyes have seen the king, the Lord almighty. | 29:23 | |
And in the midst of that experience, | 29:28 | |
he tells us that he heard the voice of God saying: | 29:29 | |
Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? | 29:32 | |
And Isaiah said: here am I, send me. | 29:37 | |
So speaking of prophets, there are not many of us | 29:42 | |
who go around telling people that we've had an experience | 29:45 | |
of such life-changing consequences as that. | 29:49 | |
I remember my call to preach, | 29:54 | |
but it was not exactly like this. | 29:56 | |
And then Ezekiel gives us even closer details of his call. | 29:59 | |
He said it was in the 30th year, in the fourth month, | 30:04 | |
on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles | 30:07 | |
by the Kebar River, that's over in Babylon. | 30:11 | |
And he said: The heavens were opened, | 30:14 | |
and I saw visions of God. | 30:16 | |
Then Ezekiel tells us of storms and lightning | 30:19 | |
and supernatural creatures. | 30:22 | |
And you read that 37th chapter and the first chapter, | 30:25 | |
and he talks about wheels turning in the air. | 30:29 | |
The scholars are able to decipher most of this vision | 30:33 | |
and translate it into symbols of contemporary significance, | 30:36 | |
but oh what a frightening vision Ezekiel had. | 30:39 | |
And in it, he saw his own people in desolation, | 30:44 | |
like a valley filled with dry bones. | 30:48 | |
And God told him to prophesy until the bones came together, | 30:51 | |
reassembled, with sinews and muscles wrapped around them, | 30:55 | |
and the breath of life breathed into them. | 31:00 | |
So there was always some message coming through, | 31:04 | |
no matter how exciting the vision was, | 31:09 | |
and how filled with symbolism the content of it, | 31:12 | |
was a call to do something about the condition | 31:17 | |
of the people. | 31:20 | |
Jeremiah tells us that he was about to give up on God, | 31:22 | |
altogether. | 31:26 | |
He said: I am through. | 31:27 | |
I will never call his name again. | 31:29 | |
But then he said, his word was in me like a burning fire, | 31:33 | |
shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing. | 31:37 | |
I could not be quiet; I had to speak. | 31:41 | |
So the prophets all speak autobiographically. | 31:46 | |
They tried hard to convince their people of their authority, | 31:51 | |
even though they were stoned and jailed, | 31:55 | |
and ostracized for crying out against injustice and greed, | 31:58 | |
idolatry and disobedience. | 32:03 | |
But the long and ceaseless centuries have come and gone, | 32:06 | |
and these same names remain sacred among us, | 32:09 | |
as spokespersons for the eternal one. | 32:12 | |
Amos, Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, Ezekiel and Jeremiah. | 32:15 | |
They're not only canonized in scripture, | 32:20 | |
but their words are axiomatic in human experience. | 32:23 | |
What they said as thus saith the Lord has been validated | 32:27 | |
and verified and amplified in empirical and pragmatic terms. | 32:31 | |
What they spoke from Jerusalem was echoed by the sages | 32:37 | |
from Athens as well, and what was received by them | 32:41 | |
through meditation in the desert, | 32:45 | |
was verified by what was arrived at by cogitation | 32:48 | |
in the Lyceum; same truth, same truth. | 32:52 | |
Micah said do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God. | 32:57 | |
That has become axiomatic everywhere, | 33:03 | |
all over the world, in every age. | 33:06 | |
Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with God. | 33:09 | |
Today we celebrate the birthday of another prophet | 33:14 | |
in the 21st century, Martin Luther King Jr. | 33:16 | |
We remember him not only for what he said, | 33:20 | |
but for what he did. | 33:23 | |
And we pause in reverent respect, | 33:25 | |
because he was one of a long procession | 33:27 | |
of those who gave their lives for the cause | 33:29 | |
in which they believed. | 33:33 | |
There are an awful lot of us who could say | 33:35 | |
what Martin King said. | 33:37 | |
An awful lot of us believe exactly what he believed. | 33:40 | |
But he died for it. | 33:45 | |
And that's why we pause to remember him today. | 33:47 | |
It was he who said that if we have not found anything | 33:52 | |
worth dying for, we've not found anything worth living for. | 33:57 | |
This is the language of a prophet. | 34:03 | |
Now I was there, at that meeting in August. | 34:06 | |
I mean, I was a super hot day in Washington, | 34:11 | |
at the Lincoln Memorial. | 34:15 | |
I had an upfront seat, looking right in King's face. | 34:17 | |
I had known him for some 15 or 20 years. | 34:22 | |
I had known him since he first came out of Morehouse College | 34:25 | |
and I had followed him through his seminary, | 34:29 | |
doctoral program, very closely. | 34:32 | |
We were friends; I knew his father and his mother. | 34:35 | |
But on that day, it seemed that I was looking | 34:38 | |
at somebody else, altogether. | 34:40 | |
I was in my office in the Peace Corps Building | 34:44 | |
on Connecticut Avenue and I was talking with Bill Russell, | 34:46 | |
the basketball immortal from the Boston Celtics. | 34:50 | |
We had asked Bill Russell to come down and talk about | 34:52 | |
helping us to recruit Peace Corps volunteers | 34:55 | |
across the south from the 100-odd traditionally, | 34:57 | |
historically black colleges. | 35:01 | |
We wanted more black Peace Corps volunteers | 35:04 | |
to know about the Peace Corps. | 35:06 | |
And while I was talking with him, we looked at our watches, | 35:08 | |
and he said: Sam, we'd better get out of here. | 35:10 | |
It's almost time for King to speak. | 35:12 | |
We jumped up, and oh, I felt so wonderful, | 35:15 | |
trotting through Connecticut Avenue, beside Bill Russell. | 35:18 | |
And when I got there, the ushers embarrassed me | 35:24 | |
by reaching for him and not reaching for me, | 35:27 | |
but I just followed closely behind, | 35:30 | |
and we ended up with seats right up front. | 35:32 | |
And then, King started. | 35:36 | |
250,000 people were there. | 35:41 | |
And they all seemed to want to go somewhere | 35:45 | |
and find higher ground. | 35:47 | |
They seemed to be ready to scream for a more honest, | 35:50 | |
a more just, a more accountable response | 35:53 | |
to the nagging issues of privilege and poverty, | 35:57 | |
illiteracy and enlightenment, racism and community, | 36:00 | |
war and world development, greed and compassion. | 36:04 | |
There were rabbis, and nuns, | 36:09 | |
Muslims and Christians, the very rich, and the very poor, | 36:13 | |
the homeless and the senators, students and professors, | 36:18 | |
busloads of Pentecostals, with the names of their churches, | 36:23 | |
printed in large letters on the side. | 36:27 | |
And then limousines bringing those from chartered airplanes, | 36:30 | |
from Hollywood and the jet-set. | 36:34 | |
A quarter of a million people. | 36:37 | |
And King just lent himself to the moment, | 36:39 | |
and spoke about only important things. | 36:42 | |
No words were wasted in trivialities. | 36:45 | |
He was like an oracle from Delphi on that day, | 36:48 | |
and the truth just poured forth like new wine. | 36:52 | |
I found myself in a transcendent state, | 36:56 | |
lost in a rare state of mind. | 37:00 | |
You know the truth when you hear it, | 37:04 | |
listening carefully to it. | 37:06 | |
It is cleansing and purifying and hypnotic. | 37:08 | |
There was nothing about which to debate. | 37:13 | |
I recall reading about Daniel Webster and Henry Clay | 37:17 | |
debating in the Senate about a proposal | 37:20 | |
of several states to secede from the union, | 37:23 | |
and after an hour of long oration on the issue | 37:26 | |
by Henry Clay, Webster took the podium and rebutted Clay, | 37:29 | |
item by item, with great conviction. | 37:33 | |
And afterwards, they met in the cloakroom, | 37:36 | |
and Henry Clay said to Daniel Webster: | 37:37 | |
How did you know what I was gonna say today? | 37:40 | |
He said: Senator, I did not know what you were going to say. | 37:43 | |
He said: Well, then how could you give such a rebuttal | 37:47 | |
to my arguments? | 37:50 | |
You gave it with such logic and coherence. | 37:54 | |
Webster said: When I heard you speaking about the union, | 37:57 | |
falling apart, I did not need any rehearsal. | 38:01 | |
I did not need any preparation. | 38:05 | |
All that I had ever read in the Bible and Shakespeare, | 38:08 | |
in John Locke and the Declaration of Independence, | 38:12 | |
in the Constitution, came before me in panoramic array. | 38:15 | |
And whenever I needed a thunderbolt, said Webster, | 38:19 | |
I just reached out and grabbed one, as it went smoking by. | 38:22 | |
Well, King on that day seemed to be grabbing thunderbolts. | 38:28 | |
For about 45 minutes, he was a prophet in our time. | 38:34 | |
And like the prophets of old, he had his detractors, | 38:39 | |
his critics, and his own, personal limitations. | 38:43 | |
But like the prophets of old, he dipped his pen | 38:46 | |
in the flow of eternal and abiding wisdom and truth. | 38:49 | |
And his lessons have remained indelible amongst us | 38:53 | |
for all of these years. | 38:56 | |
He was like Isaiah. | 38:58 | |
He did not settle for the cynicism of the time, | 39:00 | |
the transient, ephemeral mood of the moment. | 39:05 | |
He echoed the sentiment of Isaiah and transposed | 39:08 | |
his words from the sixth century BC to the 20th. | 39:11 | |
For Zion's sake, I will not be silent. | 39:16 | |
For Jerusalem's sake, I will no remain quiet, | 39:18 | |
until her righteousness shines out like the dawn. | 39:22 | |
Her salvation, like a blazing torch. | 39:25 | |
The nations will see your righteousness, | 39:29 | |
and all kings your glory. | 39:30 | |
You will be called by a new name, | 39:32 | |
that the mouth of the Lord will bestow. | 39:35 | |
You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord's hand, | 39:37 | |
a royal diadem in the hand of your God. | 39:41 | |
You will become like Beulah land. | 39:45 | |
And like the prophet of old, King left us a message | 39:49 | |
of courage, a message of wisdom, and a message of hope. | 39:52 | |
Like the prophets of old, King faced the real world, | 39:57 | |
the real world. | 40:02 | |
Persons struggling with the kind of atavistic | 40:03 | |
drag on human nature, that the church calls original sin. | 40:07 | |
A primeval propensity towards self-regard | 40:13 | |
and tribal protection. | 40:16 | |
A compounding of mistakes and evil intent | 40:19 | |
in institutional life, as well as in personal behavior. | 40:22 | |
And then the complex relationship between success | 40:27 | |
and sacrifice, between one's own survival and altruism | 40:30 | |
toward others whose needs are far greater than our own. | 40:36 | |
He left us a message in the midst of all of this ambiguity. | 40:41 | |
And it was a message of courage. | 40:46 | |
I always admired him for this. | 40:49 | |
King did not plan to be a civil rights leader. | 40:52 | |
He didn't plan to go to a Birmingham jail | 40:55 | |
or get shot in Memphis. | 40:57 | |
Everything about him pointed in another direction. | 40:59 | |
He would tell his friends about his ambition in private. | 41:03 | |
He would smile and say: you know what I really wanna be | 41:06 | |
is Benjamin May's successor at Morehouse College. | 41:09 | |
He wanted to be President of Morehouse College. | 41:12 | |
He said he wanted to be an intellectual, | 41:15 | |
black, Baptist preacher in the meantime, | 41:16 | |
like Howard Thurman and Mordecai Johnson and Vernon Johns. | 41:18 | |
And he did succeed Vernon Johns, | 41:22 | |
the inimitable Oberlin-trained voice of social justice. | 41:24 | |
King was reared in privilege. | 41:29 | |
I'm reluctant to say it, but he was never really poor. | 41:33 | |
He grew up in a family of successful people. | 41:38 | |
Isn't it odd that a lot of people don't like | 41:42 | |
for us to talk about the fact that | 41:45 | |
some black folk just weren't poor. | 41:47 | |
They learned how, early in life, not to be poor. | 41:51 | |
You see, my daddy didn't like roaches and rats | 41:55 | |
and falling plaster, toilets that didn't flush | 41:59 | |
and lights that didn't turn on. | 42:01 | |
He worked hard, and there was food | 42:05 | |
always in the refrigerator. | 42:06 | |
The telephone always worked. | 42:08 | |
King grew up in a house where they had enough to eat | 42:10 | |
for themselves and they could entertain other people. | 42:12 | |
He said that when he would come home from school, | 42:16 | |
he would look at the dinner table and there would be | 42:18 | |
Mary McLeod Bethune sitting there, | 42:20 | |
Charles Houston, you know, Mordecai Johnson, | 42:22 | |
Charles Houston, almost any big shot would be there, | 42:26 | |
because in those days, black people couldn't stay | 42:30 | |
in hotels and motels, so they stayed in the homes | 42:31 | |
of the important people who had big houses. | 42:34 | |
And they would say: well, it's not your house anyway. | 42:37 | |
It's a parsonage; it belongs to the Methodist Conference | 42:39 | |
or somebody, so we'll just stay here. | 42:42 | |
(laughing) | 42:45 | |
So King was always hanging out and hobnobbing | 42:46 | |
with very important people, as a little fellow. | 42:49 | |
And he would tell us about these people. | 42:52 | |
Raised in comfortable surroundings, | 42:53 | |
around well-educated people, his mother was a graduate | 42:55 | |
of Spelman College, she played the organ, | 42:58 | |
she was playing Melotz's Lord's Prayer as a Prelude, | 43:01 | |
when she was shot in the back by a demented person, | 43:04 | |
you'll remember. | 43:06 | |
He went to a special laboratory high school. | 43:08 | |
He didn't even go to a public high school. | 43:10 | |
The high school was sponsored by Atlanta University | 43:13 | |
for very bright people. | 43:15 | |
Isn't it odd how people who are already privileged | 43:17 | |
get more privilege; you know how that goes. | 43:20 | |
So here he was, already well-educated at home, | 43:22 | |
and then selected for another school | 43:24 | |
to educate him even better. | 43:26 | |
And then he went to Morehouse College, a very special place. | 43:29 | |
It is not easy for me to talk about Morehouse College | 43:32 | |
because I'm not a Morehouse man, but I'll tolerate this. | 43:35 | |
Morehouse was very special. | 43:40 | |
Highly-qualified people, and there's a secret about it | 43:42 | |
that not many people know: John Hope, who was the president | 43:46 | |
of Morehouse College, was also the classmate | 43:49 | |
of John D. Rockefeller at Brown University. | 43:53 | |
And in 1895, when they were graduating, | 43:56 | |
they were both marshals of the class. | 44:00 | |
John Hope, this mulatto black fellow from down in Georgia | 44:03 | |
was marching down Manning Street Hill | 44:07 | |
with John D. Rockefeller, both of them carrying the mace. | 44:09 | |
If you've got to pick a classmate, | 44:12 | |
pick John D. Rockefeller Jr. | 44:14 | |
(laughing) | 44:16 | |
And so, Morehouse College and Spelman benefited greatly | 44:19 | |
from the contact of John Hope with the Rockefeller family. | 44:24 | |
Not only that, but other Baptist institutions | 44:28 | |
like my own benefited. | 44:30 | |
Then he went to Crosier Seminary. | 44:32 | |
I don't know what you think we do in the seminaries. | 44:34 | |
I know a lot of you have some strange ideas | 44:36 | |
about what we do over there. | 44:38 | |
We do not pass out holy oil, you know, | 44:40 | |
and recite the incantations about what to do in church | 44:42 | |
on Sunday morning; we start out studying the Old Testament | 44:44 | |
by studying the religion of all the cultures surrounding | 44:48 | |
the Old Testament people. | 44:52 | |
The religion of Assyria and Babylonia and Persia | 44:54 | |
and Greece, all of that, we begin there. | 44:57 | |
We begin with archeology and the study of the languages. | 45:01 | |
We want to have the whole world well-established, | 45:04 | |
so we can drop Judaism right down in the matrix of it, | 45:07 | |
and see what it looks like. | 45:11 | |
Then when we study the New Testament, | 45:14 | |
we start with Alexander the Great. | 45:16 | |
We put the whole Seleucid Empire together, | 45:18 | |
and then after a while, we can isolate this little piece | 45:21 | |
of real estate called Palestine, | 45:24 | |
and see what that looks like in the larger context. | 45:27 | |
Then we can understand Herod and all of those people, | 45:31 | |
Felix and Festus and Pontius Pilate and all of the people | 45:34 | |
who affected the life of Jesus. | 45:38 | |
Seminary is serious study. | 45:40 | |
Some seminaries just have folks reciting Bible verses | 45:43 | |
and regurgitating them, but not at Duke Divinity School. | 45:47 | |
And not at Vanderbilt, and not at Emory, and not at Crosier. | 45:51 | |
You learn the complete environment of the Bible, | 45:56 | |
and then you study the Bible in the light of that knowledge. | 45:59 | |
That's what King studied, and King was one of those persons | 46:02 | |
who knew very well there was a God a long time | 46:06 | |
before there ever was a Bible, hello? | 46:09 | |
(laughing) | 46:13 | |
And there's a God alive a long time after the Bible canon | 46:15 | |
is closed. | 46:20 | |
He also knew that the NAACP had won all of these cases, | 46:22 | |
and what was needed now was a new strategy | 46:29 | |
to do something different, and he had the courage | 46:32 | |
to employ that new strategy. | 46:35 | |
Rosa Parks refused to move that day, | 46:38 | |
they had a meeting that night, | 46:41 | |
the meeting of the Montgomery Improvement Association. | 46:42 | |
Look at the title of the organization. | 46:46 | |
You know they weren't going to do anything iconoclastic. | 46:48 | |
Look at the name: Montgomery Improvement Association. | 46:52 | |
Take your time; don't get carried away. | 46:57 | |
But Rosa Parks had been arrested. | 47:01 | |
The wrong person to arrest. | 47:04 | |
Here she was, no lipstick, no eye shadow, eh? | 47:06 | |
No jewelry, no makeup, her hair combed back in a smooth bun. | 47:11 | |
She'd been sewing for some rich people | 47:19 | |
on the other side of town. | 47:21 | |
She got on the bus, sat somewhere in the middle. | 47:22 | |
Rule was black people filled it up from the back, | 47:25 | |
white people filled it up from the front, | 47:28 | |
but if nobody's on the bus, sit wherever you wanna sit. | 47:29 | |
Then a white man got on the bus and wanted to sit | 47:33 | |
where she was siting, and she would have to move back, | 47:36 | |
and the bus driver left his seat, | 47:40 | |
came all the way back there | 47:42 | |
and started a worldwide revolution. | 47:43 | |
He had a wonderful opportunity to go on and drive his bus | 47:48 | |
until that woman got off. | 47:51 | |
(laughing) | 47:53 | |
And if he did, I wouldn't be standing here right now, | 47:56 | |
annoying you. | 47:58 | |
But he started a worldwide revolution. | 48:03 | |
He could have looked at her and he could have told | 48:07 | |
that she was nobody to be bothering. | 48:09 | |
She looked like an angel. | 48:11 | |
Now, there were some women that he could have asked to move | 48:15 | |
and there never would have been a revolution. | 48:17 | |
I know some of them. | 48:20 | |
Sick and tired of racism, just fed up. | 48:21 | |
Not pledged to nonviolence. | 48:25 | |
They would have said: man, if you wanna move me, | 48:27 | |
you try to move me. | 48:30 | |
(negative vocalizing) | 48:33 | |
(laughing) | 48:36 | |
And then some of them would have taken an apple | 48:37 | |
out of a pocketbook and thrown it up into the air, | 48:39 | |
and then pulled out a sharp razor-blade | 48:42 | |
and peeled it on the way down, and said: Now move me. | 48:44 | |
(laughing) | 48:49 | |
And there would not have been any Civil Rights Movement, | 48:51 | |
at all, but Rosa Parks, the epitome of grace and dignity, | 48:54 | |
she had already studied nonviolence, | 49:00 | |
she was a part of a little movement there, | 49:02 | |
wanting to see change. | 49:05 | |
And that night when they had their meeting, | 49:06 | |
everybody had an excuse. | 49:08 | |
I can't lead a boycott; my wife just got a new job | 49:09 | |
on the faculty of the college. | 49:12 | |
I can't lead one; my wife is a principal | 49:14 | |
of a junior high school. | 49:16 | |
I can't lead one; I just bought a farm | 49:17 | |
and I just got a mortgage from the bank. | 49:19 | |
They said: Martin, you're the last one to come to town. | 49:21 | |
You're young, you've got a PHD. | 49:24 | |
They don't want a black PHD in jail around here. | 49:25 | |
So you lead it. | 49:29 | |
King had to abandon all of his plans, | 49:31 | |
put aside everything he'd thought of doing, | 49:35 | |
change his role entirely. | 49:38 | |
He even changed his clothes. | 49:41 | |
He took off those Hart Shaffner Marx marked suits, | 49:43 | |
started wearing dungarees and a leather jacket. | 49:46 | |
I was with him one day when we went from Montgomery | 49:51 | |
over to Tuskegee to try to make a deal to buy some gas | 49:54 | |
for the people who had their automobiles, | 49:57 | |
in the protest, they were carting the people back and forth, | 49:59 | |
the gasoline dealers in Montgomery couldn't get gas | 50:02 | |
to sell them, so we had to go to Tuskegee | 50:05 | |
to make arrangements. | 50:06 | |
And a state trooper followed us all the way, | 50:08 | |
about one yard off the tailgate of King's old, | 50:11 | |
raggedy, second-hand Pontiac station wagon. | 50:15 | |
We perspired, we were scared to death. | 50:20 | |
And then when we got there and stayed about an hour | 50:23 | |
and came back, he picked us up, | 50:25 | |
followed us all the way back. | 50:28 | |
King lived like that. | 50:30 | |
And then, one night in his home, he heard a noise. | 50:32 | |
The Deacons were out front, sleeping, guarding his house. | 50:35 | |
Now, they didn't believe in nonviolence. | 50:38 | |
They were sleeping with baseball bats in their laps. | 50:40 | |
And one of them dropped a bat, | 50:43 | |
and I just got right straight up, you know, | 50:44 | |
I didn't rise up, I levitated. | 50:46 | |
My whole body raised right up outta the bed. | 50:48 | |
I went running out front, and there the Deacon was, | 50:51 | |
still sleeping; he didn't even know he'd dropped the bat. | 50:53 | |
I came back and I asked King, knocked on his door: | 50:55 | |
Are you all right, Mike? | 50:58 | |
We called him Mike. | 50:59 | |
Come on in, Sam. | 51:01 | |
And I went in, there was Loretta, asleep, | 51:02 | |
far on the other side of the bed. | 51:05 | |
And he was leaning out of the bed with a lamp on the floor, | 51:06 | |
reading Paul Tillich's book, Courage to Be. | 51:11 | |
Three o'clock in the morning, | 51:15 | |
in the midst of the bus boycott. | 51:16 | |
Whenever we approach his life from any angle, | 51:20 | |
we got a message of courage from him. | 51:24 | |
And we got a message of wisdom. | 51:28 | |
A lot of people gave him all kinds of advice. | 51:30 | |
They were saying to him: You're just naive | 51:33 | |
and simple-minded, you know? | 51:36 | |
Nothing is gonna happen with nonviolence. | 51:38 | |
He rejected all of the cheap seductions | 51:41 | |
to preach a message of hate. | 51:43 | |
So many young, black folk couldn't stand his strategy. | 51:46 | |
A message of nonviolence, to civil disobedience. | 51:50 | |
They wanted to burn down a town somewhere, | 51:54 | |
and let people know exactly how angry they were. | 51:57 | |
Some of them wanted to teach separation. | 51:59 | |
Let's bail out; we don't need to stay here. | 52:01 | |
Let's go somewhere. | 52:04 | |
Or, stay here and isolate ourselves. | 52:06 | |
Insulate ourselves from the whole culture. | 52:12 | |
They talked that in his presence, | 52:15 | |
argued with him at public meetings. | 52:17 | |
Some talked violence in his presence. | 52:20 | |
But King knew that at the time of his boycott, | 52:24 | |
39 Supreme Court cases had already been won, | 52:28 | |
all of the legal strategy had been accomplished. | 52:32 | |
What remained was another kind of strategy altogether, | 52:35 | |
that would cause a nation's conscience to be seared, | 52:39 | |
and for things to start changing. | 52:42 | |
So he stood in the tradition of all of those apostles | 52:45 | |
of civil disobedience, like Thoreau and Dante, | 52:49 | |
and Jesus of Galilee. | 52:53 | |
And then we found that like Victor Hugo, | 52:56 | |
King discovered that greater than the power | 52:59 | |
of all the armies that ever marched | 53:01 | |
is the power of an idea whose time has come. | 53:03 | |
King was the precursor of a new emancipation. | 53:08 | |
A genuine emancipation, because he spoke wisdom. | 53:12 | |
There was nothing self-contradictory about his message. | 53:17 | |
We can live with it today | 53:22 | |
as he taught it to us 30 years ago. | 53:24 | |
And finally, there was a message of hope. | 53:27 | |
We need it so much right now. | 53:30 | |
People don't know what to believe in anymore. | 53:34 | |
These are some dark days. | 53:39 | |
There are people who are ready now to give up | 53:42 | |
on the total American experiment, | 53:44 | |
trying to embrace 260 million people | 53:47 | |
of the greatest diversity in the world, | 53:50 | |
with unprecedented freedom, | 53:53 | |
freedom of worship, freedom of the press, | 53:54 | |
freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, | 53:56 | |
a polyglot of 100 languages spoken in the public schools | 53:59 | |
of Chicago, for example, 250 some-odd religious affiliations | 54:03 | |
in every color of the rainbow amongst us. | 54:09 | |
Refugees from poverty, from war, | 54:12 | |
from racism and religious intolerance, | 54:16 | |
here they all are, on American soil. | 54:18 | |
A perfect recipe for failure and chaos. | 54:22 | |
Most countries wouldn't even try it, | 54:28 | |
without a royal family, without a dictator, | 54:30 | |
without a one-party system, you gotta be kidding! | 54:33 | |
You're gonna bind together 260 million people, | 54:37 | |
with ideas and values and make it stick? | 54:41 | |
Do you realize what we've got before us, | 54:46 | |
right now in America? | 54:49 | |
This splendid opportunity to prove to the whole world | 54:51 | |
that it can be done. | 54:56 | |
There's hardly any other goal worth striving for. | 54:59 | |
To prove to everybody that it can be done. | 55:03 | |
And like the prophet said, in America, | 55:08 | |
we are ready now to become a royal diadem, | 55:11 | |
a flaming torch in the hands of our God. | 55:14 | |
We're going to do it. | 55:18 | |
King was just simple-minded enough and naive enough | 55:19 | |
to have the hope and the faith to believe | 55:23 | |
that it could be done. | 55:25 | |
And I hear some of these prophets of a new age, | 55:28 | |
running around now talking | 55:30 | |
about a new contract with America. | 55:31 | |
We don't need a new contract; we've got an old contract. | 55:34 | |
Long overdue contract. | 55:38 | |
Starts out with those words that say: | 55:41 | |
We hold these truths to be self evident, | 55:44 | |
that all persons are created equal. | 55:48 | |
That's an old contract. | 55:50 | |
We can start there. | 55:52 | |
And King believed that if we started there, | 55:55 | |
we could make it all happen. | 55:58 | |
And I remember during his last days, | 56:01 | |
a man called me up, man I had met in 1953, in Burma. | 56:05 | |
It's terrible to be so old. | 56:09 | |
I am as old as dirt. | 56:11 | |
Way back in 1953, I met this man when I was | 56:12 | |
on a preaching mission in Burma. | 56:17 | |
He was way up in northern Burma, near the China border. | 56:19 | |
Tall, thin man from Spartanburg, South Carolina, | 56:23 | |
named Martin England. | 56:27 | |
He retired as a missionary after some 30 years | 56:30 | |
translating the Bible in these exotic languages, | 56:32 | |
and he'd come back to the United States | 56:35 | |
and had a part time job. | 56:37 | |
Part time job of working with the Baptist Pension Board. | 56:39 | |
He'd asked me, Sam, do you think King | 56:43 | |
is covered by the pension plan? | 56:46 | |
No. | 56:49 | |
Do you think his church has him in it? | 56:50 | |
No. | 56:52 | |
Any health benefits? | 56:53 | |
No, not a chance. | 56:54 | |
He never thought about that. | 56:55 | |
That's beyond his concern. | 56:58 | |
Well, Proctor, he lives dangerously. | 57:00 | |
And I think that if I could get the money together, | 57:03 | |
I'd like to see his premium paid for the first year, | 57:05 | |
until the church could pick it up. | 57:08 | |
I'd hate to see something happen to him, | 57:10 | |
and find his family just losing out entirely. | 57:12 | |
Well, find him and tell him, and if I should see him first, | 57:15 | |
I'll tell him to watch out for you. | 57:18 | |
He went all around the south, looking for King, | 57:20 | |
and all the great big, six-foot, black Baptist preachers | 57:22 | |
said: White man, get out of here! | 57:25 | |
You always thinking about money. | 57:26 | |
Who do you represent, the Ku Klux Klan, the FBI, the CIA? | 57:28 | |
Get out of here! | 57:31 | |
He called me back with a thin, thin broken voice. | 57:33 | |
Proctor, I can't get close to King. | 57:36 | |
Those fellas don't trust me. | 57:39 | |
I said: I'll call them. | 57:41 | |
And I called Wyatt T. Walken, Rath Abernathy | 57:42 | |
and a few others, Andy Young, said: This man is different. | 57:44 | |
This man cares about King and his four children. | 57:48 | |
This man has raised money to pay his premium. | 57:52 | |
Let him talk with him. | 57:54 | |
And they met him, found him down there in Georgia, | 57:55 | |
somewhere in a meeting in one of these rallies, | 57:57 | |
and they let him talk with King. | 58:00 | |
King signed the application, and within 90 days of that, | 58:01 | |
King was cut down by a high-powered rifle in Memphis. | 58:06 | |
And ever since that day, his wife has received a pension | 58:10 | |
from this pension board, all during the young lives | 58:15 | |
of his children, they were covered by health insurance | 58:18 | |
provided by the Baptist Pension Board. | 58:20 | |
Because there was a man out there from Spartanburg, | 58:24 | |
South Carolina, 70 years old, tall and thin and balding, | 58:27 | |
who believed in a genuine community, | 58:33 | |
transcended the culture, broke all the mores, | 58:37 | |
walked right out of all of the taboos, | 58:40 | |
and looked for Martin Luther King, | 58:43 | |
to provide this service for him. | 58:46 | |
King was not so naive. | 58:49 | |
He was not so simple-minded. | 58:52 | |
He was a person filled with hope | 58:54 | |
that America could become this diadem, in the hand of God. | 58:56 | |
May the Lord bless you all. | 59:02 | |
(organ music) | 59:05 | |
(echoing choral music) | 59:24 | |
Debra | The Lord be with you. | 1:03:17 |
Congregation | And also with you. | 1:03:19 |
- | Let us pray. | 1:03:20 |
Faithful and loving God, we come to the abundance | 1:03:29 | |
of your house to drink again from the river of your spirit. | 1:03:33 | |
Meet us now that we may hear what you want us to hear, | 1:03:39 | |
and know what you want us to do. | 1:03:43 | |
Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer. | 1:03:46 | |
O God, you are the giver of hope, | 1:03:50 | |
the one who inspires dreams and brings them to fulfillment. | 1:03:53 | |
Through your prophets, you have promised to bring us | 1:03:58 | |
to a land of peace and righteousness, | 1:04:00 | |
where all people serve the common good, | 1:04:03 | |
yet we are aware that all too often we seek | 1:04:07 | |
not your designs, but our own. | 1:04:10 | |
We've used your gifts and resources for our own purposes, | 1:04:13 | |
and acted as if we were not indebted for all that we have | 1:04:17 | |
and all that we are. | 1:04:21 | |
Forgive us, we pray, and bring us back to you, | 1:04:23 | |
that our lives might glorify your holy name. | 1:04:28 | |
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. | 1:04:33 | |
Help us to see and realize the possibilities | 1:04:37 | |
that you have imagined for us. | 1:04:40 | |
A world where all people realize that they are created | 1:04:43 | |
in your image, and that they have the calling | 1:04:47 | |
and the power to do justly, love mercy, | 1:04:50 | |
and walk humbly with you, our God. | 1:04:54 | |
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. | 1:04:57 | |
A world where all people, whatever the color of their skin, | 1:05:02 | |
whatever their ethnic heritage, | 1:05:06 | |
will be treated with dignity and worth. | 1:05:08 | |
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. | 1:05:12 | |
A world where all people, whatever the land of their home, | 1:05:16 | |
whatever the history of violence | 1:05:20 | |
and deprivation they have endured, | 1:05:21 | |
will learn peaceable ways to live and settle conflict. | 1:05:24 | |
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. | 1:05:29 | |
A world where all people, | 1:05:33 | |
no matter the circumstances of their birth, | 1:05:35 | |
will share in the abundance of your creation. | 1:05:38 | |
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. | 1:05:43 | |
A world where all people will learn to accept | 1:05:48 | |
your gifts with gratitude, and utilize them | 1:05:52 | |
for the purposes you have ordained, | 1:05:54 | |
that all creation may celebrate the glory | 1:05:57 | |
of your loving care. | 1:05:59 | |
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer. | 1:06:01 | |
We pray all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, | 1:06:05 | |
our Lord, who showed us what it means to live fully for you, | 1:06:08 | |
with courage and everlasting hope, | 1:06:13 | |
knowing that in the end, the victory belongs to you. | 1:06:15 | |
Amen. | 1:06:20 | |
God has abundantly blessed us and called us | 1:06:23 | |
to be a community that blesses others, | 1:06:26 | |
through our gifts and our offerings. | 1:06:29 | |
Let us give with gratitude. | 1:06:31 | |
(saxophone music) | 1:06:44 | |
(organ music) | 1:12:31 | |
(choral music) | 1:13:30 | |
♪ Hallelujah, ♪ | 1:13:42 | |
♪ Hallelujah, ♪ | 1:13:46 | |
(choral music) | 1:13:50 | |
♪ Hallelujah, ♪ | 1:14:04 | |
♪ Hallelujah, ♪ | 1:14:07 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 1:14:10 | |
♪ Hallelujah, ♪ | 1:14:13 | |
♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 1:14:17 | |
- | Let us pray. | 1:14:29 |
O gracious God, bless our offering | 1:14:31 | |
that it may reach and touch those who hunger, | 1:14:34 | |
who hurt, and who seek new hope. | 1:14:38 | |
We pray, dear God, that you would give us courage | 1:14:42 | |
in all things, to act justly, love mercy, | 1:14:45 | |
and walk humbly with you through Christ our Lord, | 1:14:50 | |
who taught us to pray together, saying: | 1:14:53 | |
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. | 1:14:56 | |
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, | 1:15:01 | |
on Earth as it is in heaven. | 1:15:04 | |
Give us this day our daily bread, | 1:15:07 | |
and forgive us our trespasses, | 1:15:10 | |
as we forgive those who trespass against us. | 1:15:12 | |
Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, | 1:15:15 | |
for thine is the kingdom | 1:15:20 | |
and the power and the glory forever. | 1:15:22 | |
Amen. | 1:15:25 | |
(organ music) | 1:15:29 | |
(echoing choral music) | 1:16:40 | |
And now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, | 1:20:35 | |
the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit | 1:20:38 | |
be with you and keep you. | 1:20:41 | |
(layered choral music) | 1:20:45 | |
(organ music) | 1:22:38 |