(gentle organ music) (somber organ music) (dramatic organ music) (gentle organ music) (dramatic organ music) (dramatic organ music) (gentle organ music) (bright organ music) (dramatic organ music) (somber organ music) (dramatic organ music) (bright organ music) (dramatic organ music) (somber organ music) (dramatic organ music) (bright organ music) (gentle organ music) ♪ Hosanna in the highest ♪ ♪ An ancient song we sing ♪ ♪ For Christ is our Redeemer ♪ ♪ Our Lord, God and our King ♪ (dramatic organ music) ♪ All glory, laud and honor ♪ ♪ To Thee, Redeemer King ♪ ♪ To whom the lips of children ♪ ♪ Made sweet hosannas ring ♪ ♪ Thou art the King of Israel ♪ ♪ Thou David's royal Son ♪ ♪ Who in the Lord's name comest ♪ ♪ The King and Blessed One ♪ ♪ The company of angels ♪ ♪ Are praising Thee on high, ♪ ♪ And mortal men and all things ♪ ♪ Created make reply ♪ ♪ The people of the Hebrews ♪ ♪ With palms before Thee went ♪ ♪ Our praise and prayer and anthems ♪ ♪ Before Thee we present ♪ ("All Glory, Laud and Honor") ♪ To Thee, before Thy passion ♪ ♪ They sang their hymns of praise ♪ ♪ To Thee, now high exalted ♪ ♪ Our melody we raise ♪ ♪ Thou didst accept their praises ♪ ♪ Accept the prayers we bring ♪ ♪ Who in all good delightest ♪ ♪ Thou good and gracious King ♪ 

- Will you join with me in the call to worship. Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord. 

- Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. 

- It is right to praise You Almighty God for the acts of love by which You have redeemed us through Your son Jesus Christ our Lord. On this day he entered the holy city of Jerusalem in triumph and was proclaimed as King of Kings by those who spread their garments and branches of palm along His way. 

- Let these branches be for us signs of His victory, and grant that we who bear them in His name may ever hail him as our King, and follow Him in the way that leads to eternal life. 

- Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. 

- Hosanna in the highest. 

- Now in the spirit of praise and worship let every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Let us pray. 

- Oh God, we who proclaim with loud hosannas that Jesus is our Lord, are people who like Peter, will deny you three times and more. We sing your glory and praise but have difficulty being obedient to Your love and good will. We comfort ourselves with a thousand easy slogans and heroic fantasies. We forget those who suffer because of us. We do not see our involvement in social crime. We substitute benign indifference for active love. Teach us the joy of gratitude, expressed in waving of the palm branches and may this joy replace the bitterness of resentment in all our lives. 

- Hear this good news, triumphant and victorious is Jesus the Christ. For His dominion shall be from sea to sea and from the river to the very ends of the earth. In the name of Jesus Christ our sins are forgiven, let us then give thanks for God is good and God's love is everlasting. 

- Thanks be to God whose love creates us, thanks be to God whose mercy redeems us. Thanks be to God whose grace leads us into the future. 

- We welcome you this very special morning, Palm Sunday, during the Lenten season, to our worship service here in Duke University Chapel. We are glad that you have come to be with us and pray that God's spirit will bless you in a special way on this day. You will notice in the bulletin a schedule of our Holy Week services on the very back page of the bulletin. We invite you to come and participate in any and all of our services this week. Also, you will note that today is the communion service, you are invited to attend the service of Eucharist immediately following the morning worship. It will be in the Memorial Chapel and you are invited to attend following the service of worship today. As you will note by the special insert in your bulletin, the offering today has been designated by Duke Campus Ministry Advisory Council to go toward relief of recent tornado victims in both North and South Carolina. The offering will be channeled through the Durham County Chapter of the American Red Cross. We are pleased to participate in this effort and we urge each of you to give generously to help our brothers and sisters who are indeed close by to us in this very great time of need. It is our privilege today that we can welcome the Reverend Dr. David G. Buttrick to our pulpit as our guest preacher for Palm Sunday. Dr. Buttrick is certainly one of the outstanding preachers in the world today. We are honored to have him. He comes to us, he is currently Professor of Homoletics and Worship at Vanderbilt Divinity School. We are very glad that he has been able to come through the auspices of the James T. Cleland Visiting Preacher Fund and the cooperation of Duke Chapel. We are very honored to have David Buttrick as our preacher, we look forward to the special word that he will bring. The sermon title today is, On Triumph and Sacrifice. 

- Let us pray. Oh Lord our God, You have given Your Word to be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Grant us grace to receive Your truth in faith and love that by it we may be prepared unto every good word and work to the glory of Your name. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. 

- The Epistle Lesson is from Philippians 2:5-11. Have this mind among yourself, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. Here ends the reading from the Epistle Lesson. (singing in foreign language) 

- Will the congregation please stand for the reading of the Gospel Lesson. The Gospel Lesson is from Matthew 20:20-28. Then the mother of the sons of Zebedee came up to him with her sons and kneeling before Him, she asked Him for something. And He said to her, "What do you want?" She said to Him, "Command that these two sons "of mine may sit, one at your right hand "and one at your left, in your kingdom." But Jesus answered, "You do not know what you are asking. "Are you able to drink the cup that I am to drink?" They said to Him, "We are able." He said to them, "You will drink my cup, "but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine "to grant, but it is for those "for whom it has been prepared by my Father." And when the ten heard it, they were indignant at the two brothers. But Jesus called them to Him and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, "and their great men exercise authority over them. "It shall not be so among you. "But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, "and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, "even as the Son of Man came not to be served "but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many." Here ends the reading from the Gospel Lesson, amen. (dramatic organ music) ♪ Glory be to God, Creator ♪ ♪ Praise to our Redeemer, King ♪ ♪ Glory be to God's own Spirit ♪ ♪ Hail the Prince of Peace ♪ ♪ How to those who call to Thee ♪ ♪ Those who want to follow Thee ♪ 

- It is an honor to stand here under the name of James Cleland, who for so many years preached from this pulpit. A great, good preacher and a nifty human being. Let's say our prayers. Oh Mighty God without Your Word we have nothing to say. Without Your Spirit we cannot hear or obey. Give us Your Word and Spirit to speak and hear. And understand and obey. And praise and honor and glorify Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen. Have you ever noticed how devious children can be. How downright tricky kids are. Try to get you to promise without knowing what you're promising. Daddy, Daddy, will you do anything we ask you. If Daddy's smart he'll back off and see what's at stake. One day two disciples, James and John, came hustling up to Jesus. Teacher, Teacher, we want you to do whatever we ask you. And Jesus was cautious, so then it came out, their wild dream, grant us to sit at Your right and at Your left in glory. Did ever ambition reach so high. Grant us, to sit at Your right hand in glory. When we overhear the conversation and like the other disciples we are outraged. Is there anything more embarrassing than undisguised lust for power. Anything more crippling than power lust. Particularly among Christians. After all, haven't we been taught that the meek are blessed, that the lowly of heart are God's special friends. Oh, yes, according to Hadler there is in all of us a reach for power as passionate as sex or hunger. But, Christians can at least keep themselves under control. But here are two disciples, men who've lived their lives with Jesus and what are they after? Nothing less than raw power. Did you read James Dean's book, Blind Ambition, the Story of His Life. Brought up in a Christian family, was sent off to Sunday School and then to a Christian college, yet he succumbed to scandal. All my life he wrote, I wanted to see myself standing in the oval office on the right hand of the president. Grant us to sit at your right hand in glory sang out the disciples, blind ambition. We hear the words and like the disciples, we're outraged is there anything, anything more embarrassing than Christian lust for power. Of course, to be honest, the same impulse is among us. The same impulse lives here where the church is always trying to cash in on the glory of Jesus Christ. You see it in our local congregations, you see it in our denominations. You've sensed it in the world wide Christian church. All want to trade in on the power of Christ. Of course the logic's easy to follow if Jesus Christ is raised. If Jesus Christ now rules with God, then surely we ought to make it big. After all, are we not the body of Christ on earth, surely the church should succeed. So old Horace Bushnell speaking from his New England pulpit, voiced it simply, God, he cried, has reserved the world for us. Be honest. Isn't anyone here who doesn't want to see somehow the church more important than it is. A church which politicians heed. A church which leads in every community, a church filled every pew and every village in every place. A church making it big. Minister up in the city of Pittsburgh, building a new church building sent out engineers to survey the height of every building for 10 blocks in every direction because, cried he, the cross ought to stand on top of the earth. Grant us, to sit at Your right hand in power. Fact is, if we're honest, the same make-it-big impulse lives among us. So what does Jesus say? Jesus says, well can you drink the cup I drink, can you follow me. Follow. For He seemed to have the odd idea that we his disciples were supposed to go wherever He went. There's the rub isn't it. Because see where He went. Out in a messy world, where tears flow and hungry hands reach out. See Him hobnobbing with scaly lepers. Hoisting a few with the mafia types and rubbing with shoulders with the B-girls of Jerusalem. Follow me. So look, if we do follow Him, we're gonna end up on the wrong side of the street. My God, on the wrong side of the world. With all those people we've been tryin' to move away from all our lives. People we don't want to bring up our kids with. Nations we don't want to suffer with. Gonna end up un-rich. Un-in and probably un-American. Wonderful letter from a young Christian, trying to be a Christian. A few years ago in South Africa, wrote back to his church newspaper, he wrote, I'm trying to be a Christian. He said, I didn't think though, I'd end in jail. And then a postscript, how.