WEBVTT
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Duke University Chapel Service of Worship.
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February 3rd, 1980.
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(muffled speaking)
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(church organ plays)
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(muffled speaking)
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(church organ plays)
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♪ I will greatly rejoice in the Lord ♪
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♪ For my soul shall exalt in my God ♪
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♪ For he has clothed me in the garments of salvation ♪
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♪ He has covered me with the robe of righteousness ♪
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♪ As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland ♪
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♪ And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels ♪
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♪ Adorns herself with her jewels ♪
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♪ With her jewels ♪
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♪ For as the earth brings forth its shoots ♪
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♪ And as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up ♪
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♪ To spring up ♪
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♪ To spring up ♪
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♪ So the Lord God ♪
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♪ Will cause righteousness and praise ♪
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♪ Will cause righteousness and praise to spring up ♪
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♪ To spring up, to spring up ♪
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♪ Before ♪
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♪ all the nations ♪
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(church organ plays)
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♪ Immortal, invisible, God only wise ♪
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♪ In light inaccessible hid from our eyes ♪
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♪ Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days ♪
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♪ Almighty, victorious, Thy great name we praise ♪
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♪ Unresting, unhasting, and silent as light ♪
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♪ Nor wanting, nor wasting, Thou rulest in might ♪
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♪ Thy justice like mountains high soaring above ♪
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♪ Thy clouds which are fountains of goodness and love ♪
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♪ To all life Thou givest, to both great and small ♪
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(organ drowns out congregation)
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I greet you in the name of almighty God
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who creates and sustains us,
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who saves us and who is present with us.
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So that we may prepare ourselves to worship God,
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let us with penitent and obedient hearts confess our sin
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and accept the forgiveness lovingly offered to us.
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You may be seated.
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(congregation stirs)
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Let us pray.
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O, God,
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early in the morning do we cry unto Thee.
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Help us to pray and to think only of Thee.
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We cannot pray alone.
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In us there is darkness,
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but with Thee there is light.
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We are lonely, but thou leavest us not.
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We are feeble in heart, but thou leavest us not.
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We are restless, but with Thee there is peace.
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In us there is bitterness, but with Thee there is patience.
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Thy ways are past understanding,
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but thou knowest the way for us.
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O, Lord, our God, we praise and thank Thee
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for the peace of the night.
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We praise and thank Thee for this new day.
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We praise and thank Thee for all Thy goodness
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and faithfulness throughout our lives.
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Thou hast granted us many blessings.
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Now let us accept tribulation from Thy hand.
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Surely thou wilt not lay on us more than we can bear.
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Thou makest all things work together for good
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for Thy children.
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Hear us, O God, as we pray in the name of Christ our Lord.
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Let us in silence confess our personal sins.
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Friends, hear and believe the good news of the gospel.
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In Jesus Christ we are forgiven.
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Let us accept that forgiveness
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and let us forgive one another.
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Let us give thanks for God is good
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and God's love is everlasting.
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Thanks be to God,
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whose love has made us.
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Thanks be to God,
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whose mercy forgives us.
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Thanks be to God,
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whose promise secures us.
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Amen.
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I extend a special word of welcome
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to those students and family members here at Duke University
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for Black Students' Weekend.
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We are especially glad to have any of you here
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in the service of worship today.
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Welcome, also, to Michael and Karen Laub Novak,
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theologians in residence at Duke for this coming week,
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and to their three children, Richard, Tanya, and Jana.
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There is an exhibit of Karen's work
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and a lecture and reception scheduled for this afternoon
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in 104 Flowers.
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Michael will deliver an address tomorrow night
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at 7:30 in Page Auditorium,
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to which you are all invited.
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You will find on the back page of the bulletin for today
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a schedule of the public events
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as they are for the next week.
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We welcome Michael Novak to the pulpit today
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and look forward to the message he will bring to us.
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Let us pray.
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Prepare our hearts, O Lord,
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to accept your word.
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Silence in us any voice but your own,
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that, hearing, we may also obey your will.
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Through Jesus Christ, our Lord,
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Amen.
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The Old Testament lesson is from the first chapter
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of Jeremiah, verses 4 through 5
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and verses 17 through 19.
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Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
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before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
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and before you were born I consecrated you.
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I appointed you a prophet to the nations.
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But you gird up your loins, arise,
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and say to them everything that I command you.
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Do not be dismayed by them,
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lest I dismay you before them.
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And I, behold,
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I make you this day a fortified city,
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an iron pillar and bronze walls
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against the whole land,
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against the kings of Judah,
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its princes, its priests,
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and the people of the land.
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They will fight against you,
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but they shall not prevail against you.
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For I am with you, says the Lord, to deliver you.
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The epistle lesson is from the 13th chapter
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of First Corinthians,
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verses 4 through 13.
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Love is patient and kind.
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Love is not jealous or boastful.
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It is not arrogant or rude.
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Love does not insist on its own way.
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It is not irritable or resentful.
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It does not rejoice at wrong,
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but rejoices in the right.
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Love bears all things,
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believes all things,
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hopes all things,
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endures all things.
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Love never ends.
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As for prophecies, they will pass away.
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As for tongues, they will cease.
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As for knowledge, it will pass away.
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For our knowledge is imperfect
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and our prophecy is imperfect.
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But when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away.
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When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
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I thought like a child,
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I reasoned like a child.
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When I became a man,
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I gave up childish ways.
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For now we see in a mirror dimly,
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but then face to face.
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Now I know in part.
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Then I shall understand fully,
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even as I have been fully understood.
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So faith,
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hope,
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love
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abide, these three,
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but the greatest of these is love.
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Here ends the reading from the epistle.
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Amen.
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(church organ plays)
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(choir sings)
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Will the congregation please stand
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for the reading of the gospel lesson.
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The gospel lesson is from the fourth chapter of Luke,
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verses 21 through 30.
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And he began to say to them,
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today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
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And all spoke well of him
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and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded
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out of his mouth.
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And they said, "Is not this Joseph's son?"
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And he said to them,
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"Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb.
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"Physician, heal yourself.
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"What we have heard you did at Capernaum,
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"do here also in your own country."
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And he said, "Truly I say to you,
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"no prophet is acceptable in his own country,
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"but in truth I tell you,
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"there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah,
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"when the Heaven was shut up three years and six months,
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"when there came a great famine over all the land,
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"and Elijah was sent to none of them,
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"but only to Zarephath in the Land of Sidon,
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"to a woman who was a widow.
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"And there were many lepers in Israel
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"in the time of the prophet Elijah,
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"and none of them was cleansed,
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"but only Naaman the Syrian."
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When they heard this,
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all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.
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And they rose up and put him out of the city,
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and led him to the brow of the hill
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on which their city was built
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that they might throw him down headlong.
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But passing through the midst of them,
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he went away.
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Here ends the reading of the gospel.
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All praise and glory be to God.
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(church organ plays)
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♪ Glory be to our creator ♪
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♪ Praise to our redeemer Lord ♪
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♪ Glory be to our sustainer ♪
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♪ Ever three and ever one ♪
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♪ As it was in the beginning ♪
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♪ World without end ♪
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♪ Amen ♪
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I am very happy to be among you this morning,
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although I must confess to just a little anxiety
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about the gospel text,
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read to us,
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which recounts the reaction of one congregation
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to one preacher many years ago
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and is calculated to strike terror
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into the heart of a new preacher
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lest some other congregation take that example
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as something they must follow.
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I'd like to talk about an experience
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that is, and must be, common
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in any free society,
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in any free and mobile society
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of the modern sort,
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which we, in the United States,
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are the chief model of.
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I call this experience by the name
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of the experience of nothingness,
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but it isn't the name that is so significant.
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It's rather the experience itself.
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And I feel quite confident
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that many of you,
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either in your own lives
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or in the lives of those who are close to you,
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have already known or will know this experience.
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Call it by whatever name.
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It is an experience which is as old as the human race
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in some forms,
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but quite different, I think, in the contemporary period.
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It is an experience that may be generated in us
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in a traditional way
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simply by the contemplation of a building,
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a great building such as this,
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unique
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in style, in its height,
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in its power,
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built around an architectural idea or set of ideas
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that are now 1000 or 1100 years old,
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an architectural idea that has seen so many generations
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come and go,
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shed from this earth like the skin of a snake.
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Imagine being married,
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having children in one's early twenties,
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and then one's children beginning to have children.
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A generation therefore being 20 to 30 years,
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how many generations there have been
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in buildings such as this.
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St. Augustine
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reports his awareness of this experience
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by saying how overcome by it he was
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when he stood on the beaches of Oran
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and looked at the multitude of stars
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and thought how small and how fleeting
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was human life.
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In our day and in our sort of society,
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these old ways of arriving at the experience of nothingness
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00:34:32.950 --> 00:34:35.141
still occur,
273
00:34:35.141 --> 00:34:40.141
and with just as much power as ever.
274
00:34:40.141 --> 00:34:43.904
But, in addition,
275
00:34:43.904 --> 00:34:48.859
there are experiences which come from within.
276
00:34:50.060 --> 00:34:54.940
These experiences come in many ways.
277
00:34:54.940 --> 00:34:57.820
I only want to take a moment to suggest
278
00:34:57.820 --> 00:35:00.410
one or two of the ways
279
00:35:00.410 --> 00:35:03.440
and allow you to relate it more directly
280
00:35:03.440 --> 00:35:07.422
to examples from your own life.
281
00:35:07.422 --> 00:35:10.992
You may, on a winter afternoon,
282
00:35:10.992 --> 00:35:13.208
have looked out a window,
283
00:35:13.208 --> 00:35:16.094
late in the day,
284
00:35:16.094 --> 00:35:20.684
from a second or third floor, say,
285
00:35:20.684 --> 00:35:25.680
and been thinking nothing in particular.
286
00:35:27.210 --> 00:35:29.751
It may even be that,
287
00:35:29.751 --> 00:35:33.284
late in the autumn,
288
00:35:33.284 --> 00:35:37.305
one heard the caw of a crow
289
00:35:37.305 --> 00:35:40.768
over the wintry field.
290
00:35:40.768 --> 00:35:44.200
Or it may be that one saw people pass in the street
291
00:35:44.200 --> 00:35:47.820
under an early light.
292
00:35:47.820 --> 00:35:50.932
Whatever.
293
00:35:50.932 --> 00:35:52.850
But suddenly there may have come
294
00:35:52.850 --> 00:35:56.020
before one's mind, as it were, the story of one's life,
295
00:35:56.020 --> 00:36:01.020
the story one was living out with one's life.
296
00:36:01.560 --> 00:36:06.548
And instantly, as it were, one loathed it.
297
00:36:09.320 --> 00:36:11.280
And you can then imagine thinking
298
00:36:11.280 --> 00:36:16.278
of a different way you might be living,
299
00:36:18.520 --> 00:36:20.830
reinforcing in yourself all those things
300
00:36:20.830 --> 00:36:23.088
which you're now inhibiting,
301
00:36:23.088 --> 00:36:24.960
and inhibiting in yourself all those things
302
00:36:24.960 --> 00:36:29.960
which you're now doing.
303
00:36:29.960 --> 00:36:31.850
Seeing that many others around us
304
00:36:31.850 --> 00:36:34.880
or in different parts of our society
305
00:36:34.880 --> 00:36:39.865
do very differently.
306
00:36:42.000 --> 00:36:44.960
And then, these alternative stories
307
00:36:44.960 --> 00:36:49.960
that one may be living out with one's life,
308
00:36:50.060 --> 00:36:55.050
one may also loathe.
309
00:36:57.030 --> 00:36:59.200
And then there comes the perception,
310
00:36:59.200 --> 00:37:01.410
which is at the heart of the experience I am trying
311
00:37:01.410 --> 00:37:04.455
to describe.
312
00:37:04.455 --> 00:37:06.890
It might be described as the perception
313
00:37:06.890 --> 00:37:11.463
of our own liberty,
314
00:37:11.463 --> 00:37:15.870
but it feels like, rather,
315
00:37:15.870 --> 00:37:20.670
the perception of the formlessness
316
00:37:20.670 --> 00:37:25.670
at the heart of our lives.
317
00:37:25.810 --> 00:37:28.660
We can be living in any of the multiple ways
318
00:37:28.660 --> 00:37:33.235
that human beings have lived.
319
00:37:33.235 --> 00:37:36.010
We could be living so very differently
320
00:37:36.010 --> 00:37:40.255
from the way we are living.
321
00:37:40.255 --> 00:37:42.440
And there are so many different ways
322
00:37:42.440 --> 00:37:45.140
in which we might live.
323
00:37:45.140 --> 00:37:50.129
Not one of those ways imposes itself upon us.
324
00:37:51.270 --> 00:37:55.807
Not one of these ways
325
00:37:55.807 --> 00:38:00.311
can assure us
326
00:38:00.311 --> 00:38:05.281
that it is the way we ought to live.
327
00:38:10.100 --> 00:38:15.045
And we recognize a kind of emptiness, if you wish,
328
00:38:16.670 --> 00:38:18.440
but more exactly, more to the point,
329
00:38:18.440 --> 00:38:21.858
a formlessness.
330
00:38:21.858 --> 00:38:26.858
If life is meant to be a narrative, a story,
331
00:38:27.400 --> 00:38:29.491
then its initial form
332
00:38:29.491 --> 00:38:33.705
must be like dough, shapeless,
333
00:38:33.705 --> 00:38:35.190
ready to be made a story,
334
00:38:35.190 --> 00:38:40.190
but of itself formless,
335
00:38:40.530 --> 00:38:43.673
into which, through which
336
00:38:43.673 --> 00:38:47.340
we can write a story.
337
00:38:47.340 --> 00:38:51.889
But which one?
338
00:38:51.889 --> 00:38:56.881
It is the perception
339
00:38:56.881 --> 00:38:59.255
of this thorough
340
00:38:59.255 --> 00:39:01.398
and quite total
341
00:39:01.398 --> 00:39:03.946
formlessness
342
00:39:03.946 --> 00:39:06.343
at the heart of life
343
00:39:06.343 --> 00:39:11.307
that many among us experience as a kind of nihilism.
344
00:39:13.370 --> 00:39:15.760
Nietzsche, the German philosopher, was the first
345
00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:20.082
to write at some length about nihilism.
346
00:39:20.082 --> 00:39:21.360
And he tried again and again
347
00:39:21.360 --> 00:39:25.100
to define the kind of experience
348
00:39:25.100 --> 00:39:29.474
that lay at the heart of it.
349
00:39:29.474 --> 00:39:31.370
One of his short,
350
00:39:31.370 --> 00:39:33.203
succinct
351
00:39:33.203 --> 00:39:35.280
statements
352
00:39:35.280 --> 00:39:36.113
of its meaning,
353
00:39:36.113 --> 00:39:39.900
he spoke about nihilism, for in the European style
354
00:39:39.900 --> 00:39:44.570
one is more likely to refer to the "ism",
355
00:39:44.570 --> 00:39:46.700
and, in the American style, more likely
356
00:39:46.700 --> 00:39:49.287
to speak of the experience.
357
00:39:49.287 --> 00:39:54.192
"What is nihilism?" he wrote.
358
00:39:54.192 --> 00:39:57.705
The question "Why?"
359
00:39:57.705 --> 00:40:01.068
has no meaning.
360
00:40:01.068 --> 00:40:03.018
Or, again,
361
00:40:03.018 --> 00:40:08.018
the meaning and the unity and the purpose
362
00:40:08.170 --> 00:40:13.164
which we had put into our lives
363
00:40:13.164 --> 00:40:18.161
we suddenly withdraw.
364
00:40:19.110 --> 00:40:24.110
It was one thing for Nietzsche, towards the end of his life,
365
00:40:24.110 --> 00:40:27.717
after years of inquiry
366
00:40:27.717 --> 00:40:32.609
and searching
367
00:40:32.609 --> 00:40:37.361
to speak and write of the joyous wisdom
368
00:40:37.361 --> 00:40:40.649
of encountering the nothingness
369
00:40:40.649 --> 00:40:45.649
at the heart of human consciousness.
370
00:40:46.210 --> 00:40:51.210
It's a little different to be 13 years old
371
00:40:51.620 --> 00:40:55.620
and, through no particular inquiry at all,
372
00:40:55.620 --> 00:40:59.666
to have come upon the experience.
373
00:40:59.666 --> 00:41:01.016
Or it's another
374
00:41:01.016 --> 00:41:05.962
to be 55, 63, whatever years old,
375
00:41:08.260 --> 00:41:13.234
and looking back on all the energies spent in one's life,
376
00:41:14.460 --> 00:41:15.801
to wonder
377
00:41:15.801 --> 00:41:20.778
at the form one had given time,
378
00:41:22.660 --> 00:41:27.308
at the value of the narrative
379
00:41:27.308 --> 00:41:30.951
one had chosen,
380
00:41:30.951 --> 00:41:35.910
and to see how relatively empty it stands,
381
00:41:36.760 --> 00:41:40.978
still against the void.
382
00:41:40.978 --> 00:41:43.480
It's the task, I want to argue,
383
00:41:43.480 --> 00:41:46.520
of a free society and a mobile society,
384
00:41:46.520 --> 00:41:49.170
a pluralistic society,
385
00:41:49.170 --> 00:41:52.193
to generate among us the experience of nothingness,
386
00:41:53.270 --> 00:41:56.426
to make it common,
387
00:41:56.426 --> 00:41:59.670
to make it the inheritance, the normal inheritance,
388
00:41:59.670 --> 00:42:04.667
the daily bread of the 13-year-old
389
00:42:05.790 --> 00:42:10.050
or of any of us, at any decade of our lives.
390
00:42:10.050 --> 00:42:15.050
It is the sign of a healthy society
391
00:42:15.150 --> 00:42:18.945
that this experience should be multiplied,
392
00:42:18.945 --> 00:42:22.708
even though it be reported as alienation
393
00:42:22.708 --> 00:42:24.765
or malaise
394
00:42:24.765 --> 00:42:28.660
or confusion
395
00:42:28.660 --> 00:42:33.618
or whatever.
396
00:42:35.370 --> 00:42:39.849
If you ask yourself
397
00:42:39.849 --> 00:42:43.117
what led Nietzsche,
398
00:42:43.117 --> 00:42:47.508
Turgenev, who was the first to mention the experience,
399
00:42:47.508 --> 00:42:50.351
Dostoevsky, Freud,
400
00:42:50.351 --> 00:42:55.290
Sartre, Camus, and others
401
00:42:56.330 --> 00:43:01.318
to write about the experience of nothingness,
402
00:43:02.620 --> 00:43:06.706
you are led to reflections like these.
403
00:43:06.706 --> 00:43:11.082
It's odd that they should write about it.
404
00:43:11.082 --> 00:43:15.265
Writing being such a demanding action.
405
00:43:15.265 --> 00:43:17.420
Sitting on one's bottom, moving one's hand
406
00:43:17.420 --> 00:43:22.230
across a piece of paper, endlessly.
407
00:43:22.230 --> 00:43:27.230
If life is short
408
00:43:27.820 --> 00:43:31.255
and without meaning,
409
00:43:31.255 --> 00:43:34.950
it's hard to imagine a more pointless act
410
00:43:34.950 --> 00:43:36.908
than writing.
411
00:43:36.908 --> 00:43:41.240
Yet what impelled them to write?
412
00:43:41.240 --> 00:43:45.412
Something they didn't write about
413
00:43:45.412 --> 00:43:47.763
was their own motive,
414
00:43:47.763 --> 00:43:51.096
their own impulsion.
415
00:43:51.096 --> 00:43:54.400
If one reflects on it,
416
00:43:54.400 --> 00:43:56.380
one begins to discover
417
00:43:56.380 --> 00:43:59.700
at the heart of the experience of nothingness
418
00:43:59.700 --> 00:44:04.700
several preconditions, several impulsions,
419
00:44:04.980 --> 00:44:09.890
without which it will not occur.
420
00:44:10.940 --> 00:44:13.030
The fingers tap at the windowpane,
421
00:44:13.030 --> 00:44:17.350
as T.S. Eliot says.
422
00:44:17.350 --> 00:44:21.267
But one doesn't have to reply.
423
00:44:21.267 --> 00:44:25.907
There are many in America and elsewhere,
424
00:44:25.907 --> 00:44:27.510
who, when the experience of nothingness
425
00:44:27.510 --> 00:44:30.170
begins to make itself felt in their lives,
426
00:44:30.170 --> 00:44:34.270
get up and look for something to do.
427
00:44:34.270 --> 00:44:36.728
Something useful and important,
428
00:44:36.728 --> 00:44:41.711
like starting a committee.
429
00:44:42.910 --> 00:44:46.573
Or they pick up the car keys,
430
00:44:46.573 --> 00:44:48.980
look for somewhere to go or turn on the radio
431
00:44:48.980 --> 00:44:52.448
or the television,
432
00:44:52.448 --> 00:44:55.790
look for somebody to hug.
433
00:44:55.790 --> 00:44:58.850
Nothing is more common
434
00:44:58.850 --> 00:45:01.070
than evading the experience of nothingness
435
00:45:01.070 --> 00:45:06.070
so it doesn't arise in consciousness.
436
00:45:06.620 --> 00:45:10.925
There are some who have said that the whole secret of life
437
00:45:10.925 --> 00:45:13.935
is to forget,
438
00:45:13.935 --> 00:45:16.152
to keep busy
439
00:45:16.152 --> 00:45:20.072
or to keep moving.
440
00:45:20.072 --> 00:45:21.670
If the experience of nothingness is
441
00:45:21.670 --> 00:45:25.790
to arise in consciousness,
442
00:45:25.790 --> 00:45:30.474
several conditions must be met.
443
00:45:30.474 --> 00:45:33.330
I've been describing one of them, in fact:
444
00:45:33.330 --> 00:45:36.071
liberty.
445
00:45:36.071 --> 00:45:38.750
We are free to direct our consciousness,
446
00:45:38.750 --> 00:45:41.398
it is our radical and fundamental freedom.
447
00:45:41.398 --> 00:45:44.040
The freedom
448
00:45:44.040 --> 00:45:49.037
to direct the light of our own conscious attention.
449
00:45:51.080 --> 00:45:53.660
This morning, some cough,
450
00:45:53.660 --> 00:45:57.570
you must all feel the chairs on your bottoms,
451
00:45:57.570 --> 00:46:00.200
you know whether or not you've had breakfast,
452
00:46:00.200 --> 00:46:01.590
whether you expect to.
453
00:46:01.590 --> 00:46:02.990
There's a day of activities
454
00:46:02.990 --> 00:46:06.010
yet to be done
455
00:46:06.010 --> 00:46:08.040
and activities to be remembered.
456
00:46:08.040 --> 00:46:12.289
Reality is so multiple and so manifold,
457
00:46:12.289 --> 00:46:14.888
that though we are in one another's presence,
458
00:46:14.888 --> 00:46:19.888
we may not be in one another's presence in reality.
459
00:46:20.130 --> 00:46:25.120
It depends on where we focus our attention.
460
00:46:27.210 --> 00:46:29.190
And so one of the preconditions
461
00:46:29.190 --> 00:46:31.304
of the experience of nothingness
462
00:46:31.304 --> 00:46:34.940
is this liberty over our own consciousness.
463
00:46:34.940 --> 00:46:38.048
The liberty to attend to it,
464
00:46:38.048 --> 00:46:40.648
the liberty to notice it.
465
00:46:40.648 --> 00:46:43.600
It doesn't seem, as Albert Camus said,
466
00:46:43.600 --> 00:46:45.090
that trees
467
00:46:45.090 --> 00:46:46.550
or cats
468
00:46:46.550 --> 00:46:50.562
or birds
469
00:46:50.562 --> 00:46:55.263
experience the absurd.
470
00:46:55.263 --> 00:46:58.480
It is free creatures
471
00:46:58.480 --> 00:47:00.905
who do.
472
00:47:00.905 --> 00:47:04.468
Second, there is required
473
00:47:04.468 --> 00:47:07.597
a certain honesty.
474
00:47:07.597 --> 00:47:11.587
Now, honesty is a very complicated quality of human life
475
00:47:11.587 --> 00:47:14.840
and it changes in every decade of our lives,
476
00:47:14.840 --> 00:47:18.100
it's one of those qualities of human behavior,
477
00:47:18.100 --> 00:47:19.890
characteristics of human behavior,
478
00:47:19.890 --> 00:47:21.080
that doesn't stay the same,
479
00:47:21.080 --> 00:47:22.890
that can't be defined in a way
480
00:47:22.890 --> 00:47:26.182
that applies through all the ages of one's life.
481
00:47:26.182 --> 00:47:27.707
It grows with us,
482
00:47:27.707 --> 00:47:32.290
and our understanding of the demands of honesty grows
483
00:47:32.290 --> 00:47:35.653
with each decade of our lives.
484
00:47:35.653 --> 00:47:37.940
It's one of the reasons why, looking back on our lives,
485
00:47:37.940 --> 00:47:39.660
we are so often embarrassed
486
00:47:39.660 --> 00:47:42.768
and ashamed of the person we were
487
00:47:42.768 --> 00:47:47.655
even a short while ago.
488
00:47:48.750 --> 00:47:53.750
And so I can't attempt to define honesty exactly.
489
00:47:54.130 --> 00:47:55.710
I only want to point to the fact
490
00:47:55.710 --> 00:47:58.800
that there are so many things about us,
491
00:47:58.800 --> 00:48:00.930
of whose existence we are aware,
492
00:48:00.930 --> 00:48:03.030
but we don't really want to
493
00:48:03.030 --> 00:48:08.009
draw our attention to.
494
00:48:12.280 --> 00:48:15.673
It's not so much that we deny them
495
00:48:15.673 --> 00:48:19.857
as that we don't attend to them.
496
00:48:19.857 --> 00:48:22.170
And by honesty I mean
497
00:48:22.170 --> 00:48:26.440
that drive of attention,
498
00:48:26.440 --> 00:48:29.993
that light, as it were,
499
00:48:29.993 --> 00:48:34.128
which we allow to rest
500
00:48:34.128 --> 00:48:37.670
on a certain part of our nature,
501
00:48:37.670 --> 00:48:40.850
on a certain part of our existence.
502
00:48:40.850 --> 00:48:43.310
And in this particular case
503
00:48:43.310 --> 00:48:46.030
upon that formlessness that lies
504
00:48:46.030 --> 00:48:51.030
at the heart of our liberty.
505
00:48:51.510 --> 00:48:54.606
That dizziness,
506
00:48:54.606 --> 00:48:58.348
that confusion
507
00:48:58.348 --> 00:49:02.380
that accompanies the sense that we can do with our lives
508
00:49:02.380 --> 00:49:06.475
what we will.
509
00:49:06.475 --> 00:49:09.030
And that what we have been doing with our lives,
510
00:49:09.030 --> 00:49:14.022
we need not continue to do with them.
511
00:49:16.150 --> 00:49:18.760
Again, without the directing of our attention,
512
00:49:18.760 --> 00:49:21.580
without allowing this experience,
513
00:49:21.580 --> 00:49:26.563
so enervating and incapacitating as it often seems,
514
00:49:27.670 --> 00:49:29.090
to arise, it won't arise.
515
00:49:29.090 --> 00:49:31.770
We will simply evade it.
516
00:49:31.770 --> 00:49:34.370
It is true that life sometimes so overcomes us
517
00:49:34.370 --> 00:49:36.750
that suddenly we can't escape it.
518
00:49:36.750 --> 00:49:38.620
But for most of us, most of the time,
519
00:49:38.620 --> 00:49:41.180
it's off the back of consciousness.
520
00:49:41.180 --> 00:49:43.220
We block it with what Norman Mailer calls
521
00:49:43.220 --> 00:49:47.888
the everlasting, endless nihilism
522
00:49:47.888 --> 00:49:51.690
of the muzak at O'Hare Terminal.
523
00:49:51.690 --> 00:49:54.970
We play music all the time.
524
00:49:54.970 --> 00:49:58.630
We don't allow ourselves to be alone.
525
00:49:58.630 --> 00:50:03.610
We don't allow ourselves to live with our own consciousness.
526
00:50:05.810 --> 00:50:08.360
And it won't, the experience of nothingness won't become
527
00:50:08.360 --> 00:50:12.290
apparent to us without, thirdly, courage:
528
00:50:12.290 --> 00:50:17.105
the kind of courage required to make honesty appear
529
00:50:17.105 --> 00:50:19.711
or effective.
530
00:50:19.711 --> 00:50:22.840
Honesty and courage are
531
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:26.409
the other side of each other.
532
00:50:26.409 --> 00:50:27.780
For there are lots of things we can see,
533
00:50:27.780 --> 00:50:32.718
but we don't really want to see.
534
00:50:33.650 --> 00:50:36.773
Your wife
535
00:50:36.773 --> 00:50:40.170
tells you you're conceited:
536
00:50:40.170 --> 00:50:44.046
she never did understand you.
537
00:50:44.046 --> 00:50:49.046
You're not prepared to admit you're wrong,
538
00:50:49.060 --> 00:50:51.727
in the circumstance in question.
539
00:50:51.727 --> 00:50:55.460
But later, a month later, two months later, whatever,
540
00:50:55.460 --> 00:50:58.065
you see exactly what she meant.
541
00:50:58.065 --> 00:51:01.028
And you could have seen it earlier.
542
00:51:01.028 --> 00:51:03.618
But you wouldn't let yourself.
543
00:51:03.618 --> 00:51:08.618
You can only take so much self-criticism at a time.
544
00:51:10.010 --> 00:51:13.555
And when too much comes, we shut the door
545
00:51:13.555 --> 00:51:16.201
and refuse to see.
546
00:51:16.201 --> 00:51:18.260
It takes a certain amount of courage to see
547
00:51:18.260 --> 00:51:23.243
what we already know is there.
548
00:51:24.640 --> 00:51:29.213
And consequently courage is required
549
00:51:29.213 --> 00:51:32.498
to see the formlessness at the heart of our lives
550
00:51:32.498 --> 00:51:37.498
and to begin to take responsibility for it.
551
00:51:38.020 --> 00:51:41.690
And, finally, community.
552
00:51:41.690 --> 00:51:45.400
We wouldn't come to concentrate our attention on liberty
553
00:51:45.400 --> 00:51:47.420
and on honesty
554
00:51:47.420 --> 00:51:49.250
and on courage
555
00:51:49.250 --> 00:51:51.750
unless we belonged to a culture
556
00:51:51.750 --> 00:51:54.808
in which such values were celebrated,
557
00:51:54.808 --> 00:51:59.526
in which books and indeed religions
558
00:51:59.526 --> 00:52:03.414
had not called our attention to these qualities.
559
00:52:03.414 --> 00:52:08.214
Human beings have lived in every imaginable sort of way
560
00:52:08.214 --> 00:52:09.480
and distributed their energy
561
00:52:09.480 --> 00:52:14.187
in an endless series of patterns.
562
00:52:14.187 --> 00:52:18.815
It isn't in every culture
563
00:52:18.815 --> 00:52:22.280
that the experiences of the individual
564
00:52:22.280 --> 00:52:25.535
at the root of the individual consciousness
565
00:52:25.535 --> 00:52:28.310
are valued as the place in which the highest concentration
566
00:52:28.310 --> 00:52:30.080
of energy should be made.
567
00:52:30.080 --> 00:52:33.105
It is true in our culture.
568
00:52:33.105 --> 00:52:37.155
Perhaps it's true to a fault.
569
00:52:37.155 --> 00:52:40.400
The point is that the experience of nothingness,
570
00:52:40.400 --> 00:52:45.400
although it tends to overwhelm us, one by one,
571
00:52:45.870 --> 00:52:49.648
and to seem to make us alone,
572
00:52:49.648 --> 00:52:54.639
unable to decide how to act or what to become or what to do
573
00:52:55.860 --> 00:52:58.630
because everything begins to seem equal
574
00:52:58.630 --> 00:53:03.617
in importance or in unimportance.
575
00:53:04.520 --> 00:53:08.871
The experience of nothingness won't arise
576
00:53:08.871 --> 00:53:12.445
without these acts of honesty,
577
00:53:12.445 --> 00:53:13.670
courage,
578
00:53:13.670 --> 00:53:16.401
liberty,
579
00:53:16.401 --> 00:53:20.059
and the sort of community
580
00:53:20.059 --> 00:53:24.330
that teaches us to perform these acts frequently,
581
00:53:24.330 --> 00:53:29.172
encourages us to.
582
00:53:29.172 --> 00:53:34.152
The experience of nothingness often seems to isolate us,
583
00:53:35.550 --> 00:53:39.955
but in fact it joins us to the community.
584
00:53:39.955 --> 00:53:44.523
It joins us to the community of those in our culture
585
00:53:44.523 --> 00:53:47.579
who have come to the heart of our culture
586
00:53:47.579 --> 00:53:50.587
and indeed the heart of every culture,
587
00:53:50.587 --> 00:53:54.501
for beneath the forms of every culture
588
00:53:54.501 --> 00:53:58.544
there is the formlessness possible
589
00:53:58.544 --> 00:54:03.501
to the human being.
590
00:54:04.660 --> 00:54:09.660
It's not an accident, I think,
591
00:54:09.960 --> 00:54:13.860
that the God of Judaism and Islam
592
00:54:13.860 --> 00:54:18.020
and Christianity
593
00:54:18.020 --> 00:54:23.020
should have chosen so often for himself
594
00:54:23.150 --> 00:54:28.137
the images of light
595
00:54:29.030 --> 00:54:34.030
and imposed demands that are demands of liberty,
596
00:54:34.150 --> 00:54:38.885
and called upon courage.
597
00:54:39.750 --> 00:54:43.422
That is,
598
00:54:43.422 --> 00:54:48.409
there is a radical darkness,
599
00:54:50.786 --> 00:54:53.530
a trial,
600
00:54:53.530 --> 00:54:55.810
undercutting,
601
00:54:55.810 --> 00:55:00.810
emptying
602
00:55:00.970 --> 00:55:05.966
in the transformations we must undergo
603
00:55:07.900 --> 00:55:11.331
in order to come closer
604
00:55:11.331 --> 00:55:14.827
to an understanding of God
605
00:55:14.827 --> 00:55:17.811
as he reveals himself to us
606
00:55:17.811 --> 00:55:22.742
in buildings like the present one.
607
00:55:22.742 --> 00:55:25.320
Christianity is not an attempt
608
00:55:25.320 --> 00:55:29.295
to cover over the experience of nothingness,
609
00:55:29.295 --> 00:55:34.276
to take away the nihilism, to cause us to forget it.
610
00:55:35.750 --> 00:55:40.750
Christianity is an attempt to encourage us
611
00:55:41.180 --> 00:55:44.734
to increase the frequency
612
00:55:44.734 --> 00:55:47.410
of those acts of honesty
613
00:55:47.410 --> 00:55:49.668
and of courage,
614
00:55:49.668 --> 00:55:52.859
of the exercise of our liberty,
615
00:55:52.859 --> 00:55:55.230
and of the joining of that community
616
00:55:55.230 --> 00:55:59.904
which has shared this experience,
617
00:55:59.904 --> 00:56:04.593
which constitute over and over again
618
00:56:04.593 --> 00:56:09.593
the perception of how insecure are the structures we build,
619
00:56:09.870 --> 00:56:14.870
how rapidly dissolved may be the cultures
620
00:56:15.180 --> 00:56:18.680
and institutions in which we live,
621
00:56:18.680 --> 00:56:23.680
how terrible and collapsing the times may be,
622
00:56:23.690 --> 00:56:27.659
how without form, how without bedrock
623
00:56:27.659 --> 00:56:30.100
individual human existence
624
00:56:30.100 --> 00:56:34.671
or the existence of an entire society can be.
625
00:56:34.671 --> 00:56:39.659
I thought it important to speak on this theme today
626
00:56:41.130 --> 00:56:42.560
because I have been thinking
627
00:56:43.790 --> 00:56:46.248
that the end of the 1970s
628
00:56:46.248 --> 00:56:51.248
were so like the end of the 1930s,
629
00:56:51.648 --> 00:56:55.703
and that the 1980s have about them already
630
00:56:55.703 --> 00:56:59.175
the smell of the 1940s.
631
00:56:59.175 --> 00:57:01.906
It seems to me so clear
632
00:57:01.906 --> 00:57:06.532
that we may be entering into a very dark period,
633
00:57:06.532 --> 00:57:11.532
one of the darkest of our entire civilization.
634
00:57:12.150 --> 00:57:17.147
And it seems to me therefore worthwhile recalling
635
00:57:17.147 --> 00:57:20.695
that the God who did not spare his son
636
00:57:20.695 --> 00:57:24.054
the experience of nothingness
637
00:57:24.054 --> 00:57:29.052
is not liable or likely to spare his people that experience.
638
00:57:42.990 --> 00:57:46.073
(church organ plays)
639
00:58:14.188 --> 00:58:19.131
♪ God of love and God of power ♪
640
00:58:19.131 --> 00:58:24.131
♪ Grant us in this burning hour ♪
641
00:58:24.506 --> 00:58:29.362
♪ Grace to ask these gifts of Thee ♪
642
00:58:29.362 --> 00:58:34.362
♪ Daring hearts and spirits free ♪
643
00:58:34.625 --> 00:58:39.625
♪ God of love and God of power ♪
644
00:58:39.982 --> 00:58:44.982
♪ Thou hast called us for this hour ♪
645
00:58:47.769 --> 00:58:52.631
♪ We are not the first to be ♪
646
00:58:52.631 --> 00:58:57.631
♪ Banished by our fears from Thee ♪
647
00:58:57.985 --> 00:59:02.985
♪ Give us courage, let us hear ♪
648
00:59:03.325 --> 00:59:08.325
♪ Heaven's trumpets ringing clear ♪
649
00:59:08.910 --> 00:59:13.910
♪ God of love and God of power ♪
650
00:59:14.180 --> 00:59:19.180
♪ Thou hast called us for this hour ♪
651
00:59:21.831 --> 00:59:26.816
♪ All our lives belong to Thee ♪
652
00:59:26.816 --> 00:59:31.816
♪ Thou our final loyalty ♪
653
00:59:32.248 --> 00:59:37.248
♪ Slaves are we whene'er we share ♪
654
00:59:37.342 --> 00:59:42.342
♪ That devotion anywhere ♪
655
00:59:42.931 --> 00:59:47.931
♪ God of love and God of power ♪
656
00:59:48.480 --> 00:59:53.480
♪ Thou hast called us for this hour ♪
657
00:59:56.580 --> 01:00:01.130
♪ God of love and God of power ♪
658
01:00:01.130 --> 01:00:06.130
♪ Make us worThy of this hour ♪
659
01:00:06.855 --> 01:00:11.855
♪ Offering lives if it's Thy will ♪
660
01:00:11.912 --> 01:00:16.912
♪ Keeping free our spirits still ♪
661
01:00:17.266 --> 01:00:22.266
♪ God of love and God of power ♪
662
01:00:22.860 --> 01:00:27.860
♪ Thou hast called us for this hour ♪
663
01:00:30.507 --> 01:00:32.424
♪ Amen ♪
664
01:00:38.120 --> 01:00:40.143
Let us affirm what we believe.
665
01:00:42.010 --> 01:00:43.840
We believe in God,
666
01:00:43.840 --> 01:00:47.040
who has created and is creating,
667
01:00:47.040 --> 01:00:50.260
who has come in the truly human Jesus
668
01:00:50.260 --> 01:00:53.410
to reconcile and make new,
669
01:00:53.410 --> 01:00:56.763
who works in us and others by the spirit.
670
01:00:57.660 --> 01:01:02.250
We trust God, who calls us to be the church,
671
01:01:02.250 --> 01:01:05.440
to celebrate life and its fullness,
672
01:01:05.440 --> 01:01:08.260
to love and serve others,
673
01:01:08.260 --> 01:01:11.620
to seek justice and resist evil,
674
01:01:11.620 --> 01:01:15.680
to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,
675
01:01:15.680 --> 01:01:17.530
our judge and our hope
676
01:01:18.380 --> 01:01:23.380
in life, in death, in life beyond death,
677
01:01:23.500 --> 01:01:25.620
God is with us,
678
01:01:25.620 --> 01:01:27.960
we are not alone.
679
01:01:27.960 --> 01:01:29.493
Thanks be to God.
680
01:01:30.800 --> 01:01:32.929
The Lord be with you.
681
01:01:32.929 --> 01:01:34.230
And with your spirit.
682
01:01:34.230 --> 01:01:35.143
Let us pray.
683
01:01:36.604 --> 01:01:39.687
(congregation stirs)
684
01:01:44.640 --> 01:01:45.683
Mighty God,
685
01:01:46.730 --> 01:01:50.790
we are thankful that the world as you have created it
686
01:01:50.790 --> 01:01:52.653
is not a puppet stage,
687
01:01:54.220 --> 01:01:56.090
and that we, unlike marionettes,
688
01:01:56.090 --> 01:01:59.140
have both the ability and the responsibility
689
01:01:59.140 --> 01:02:03.010
to make choices, to reach decisions
690
01:02:03.010 --> 01:02:05.663
as individuals and in groups.
691
01:02:07.290 --> 01:02:10.040
We thank you, God, that people throughout the world
692
01:02:10.040 --> 01:02:13.630
have great latitude in shaping customs, languages,
693
01:02:13.630 --> 01:02:15.540
and societies,
694
01:02:15.540 --> 01:02:19.000
so that our earth knows the sound of joyful surprise
695
01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:20.870
as we discover one another
696
01:02:20.870 --> 01:02:22.193
and our differences.
697
01:02:24.250 --> 01:02:27.220
And, God, we are grateful that we can say yes
698
01:02:27.220 --> 01:02:29.740
and that we can say no,
699
01:02:29.740 --> 01:02:32.260
even though we are sometimes confused
700
01:02:32.260 --> 01:02:36.740
about our yeses and nos and vacillate between the two,
701
01:02:36.740 --> 01:02:41.013
wanting to say neither or to say both at the same time.
702
01:02:42.340 --> 01:02:44.200
We are thankful for those times
703
01:02:44.200 --> 01:02:48.503
because it makes us think about the decisions we must make.
704
01:02:50.700 --> 01:02:53.580
Mostly, O God, we are thankful for your love,
705
01:02:53.580 --> 01:02:55.670
which is always there,
706
01:02:55.670 --> 01:02:58.490
just as strong when we make wise decisions
707
01:02:58.490 --> 01:03:00.393
or when we make foolish ones,
708
01:03:01.380 --> 01:03:05.603
a love just as strong when we frown or when we laugh.
709
01:03:07.020 --> 01:03:10.120
For your love we are indeed thankful,
710
01:03:10.120 --> 01:03:13.530
even though we stand before you today as a people
711
01:03:13.530 --> 01:03:16.810
who find it difficult to accept your love,
712
01:03:16.810 --> 01:03:20.483
and to realize its importance for us and for others.
713
01:03:21.800 --> 01:03:24.860
We get confronted by all kinds of ideologies
714
01:03:24.860 --> 01:03:28.633
and even by accusations of who we are and are not,
715
01:03:29.510 --> 01:03:32.233
and we are mindful of our need for healing,
716
01:03:33.300 --> 01:03:36.723
and we know we do not stand alone in our need.
717
01:03:39.130 --> 01:03:42.500
We look at your world and we see its hurts
718
01:03:42.500 --> 01:03:44.520
and its divisions,
719
01:03:44.520 --> 01:03:48.340
and we remember those persons who have power to govern,
720
01:03:48.340 --> 01:03:50.783
and we ask for wisdom to be theirs.
721
01:03:51.950 --> 01:03:54.270
We pray for those who do not have power
722
01:03:54.270 --> 01:03:56.120
to order their lives,
723
01:03:56.120 --> 01:03:58.340
and we pray for those who must learn
724
01:03:58.340 --> 01:04:00.253
to use their power justly.
725
01:04:02.420 --> 01:04:04.490
We pray especially today for those
726
01:04:04.490 --> 01:04:06.810
who seek to be peacemakers.
727
01:04:06.810 --> 01:04:10.293
May they have understanding and courage to be merciful.
728
01:04:11.710 --> 01:04:14.940
We especially remember the assistance Canada rendered
729
01:04:14.940 --> 01:04:17.733
to free persons in Iran this past week,
730
01:04:18.810 --> 01:04:20.830
and we pray for all those this day
731
01:04:20.830 --> 01:04:24.113
who are subjected to the pain and death of war.
732
01:04:25.560 --> 01:04:28.350
We ask for your wisdom and healing presence
733
01:04:28.350 --> 01:04:30.523
in Afghanistan and in Iran.
734
01:04:31.560 --> 01:04:33.990
We ask for your presence with all those
735
01:04:33.990 --> 01:04:35.940
who are political prisoners,
736
01:04:35.940 --> 01:04:39.933
not only in Iran, but in Chile, in Argentina,
737
01:04:40.790 --> 01:04:43.333
in all those other prisons in the world.
738
01:04:45.050 --> 01:04:48.180
We remember those today who live and die hungry
739
01:04:48.180 --> 01:04:50.770
and we pray for right judgment in the use
740
01:04:50.770 --> 01:04:52.093
of our material wealth.
741
01:04:53.970 --> 01:04:56.480
We look at our church today
742
01:04:56.480 --> 01:04:59.410
and we recognize that it, too, stands in need
743
01:04:59.410 --> 01:05:00.713
of your healing touch.
744
01:05:01.710 --> 01:05:05.013
We see its divisions and we hear its arguments.
745
01:05:05.850 --> 01:05:10.050
We recognize that it is guilty, even as we are guilty,
746
01:05:10.050 --> 01:05:13.590
of trying to withhold your love from those we do not feel
747
01:05:13.590 --> 01:05:14.690
to be deserving of it,
748
01:05:16.040 --> 01:05:18.653
and we ask for healing for the church.
749
01:05:19.960 --> 01:05:24.960
For the lonely, the dying, the sick, the mistreated,
750
01:05:25.710 --> 01:05:29.160
all whose need is greater than ours,
751
01:05:29.160 --> 01:05:31.940
may they know that your love moves among them
752
01:05:31.940 --> 01:05:34.633
and that our love moves there as well.
753
01:05:36.090 --> 01:05:38.560
Lord, we have this life,
754
01:05:38.560 --> 01:05:40.623
and we want to live it to the full.
755
01:05:41.850 --> 01:05:44.470
Don't let us miss that which is good
756
01:05:44.470 --> 01:05:47.983
or scorn those who seem to find what we have missed.
757
01:05:48.890 --> 01:05:50.673
Lord, give us freedom,
758
01:05:51.520 --> 01:05:55.103
freedom to rejoice in your gifts of life and love.
759
01:05:56.000 --> 01:05:57.790
Give us faith.
760
01:05:57.790 --> 01:06:00.920
Faith to be happy and serving and to praise you
761
01:06:00.920 --> 01:06:02.293
with all our strength.
762
01:06:04.000 --> 01:06:07.320
For we pray in the name of Jesus, our Lord,
763
01:06:07.320 --> 01:06:10.330
who teaches us to pray together, saying:
764
01:06:10.330 --> 01:06:13.340
Our father, who art in heaven,
765
01:06:13.340 --> 01:06:15.620
hallowed be Thy name.
766
01:06:15.620 --> 01:06:17.490
Thy kingdom come,
767
01:06:17.490 --> 01:06:19.190
Thy will be done
768
01:06:19.190 --> 01:06:22.000
on Earth as it is in Heaven.
769
01:06:22.000 --> 01:06:25.090
Give us this day our daily bread
770
01:06:25.090 --> 01:06:27.690
and forgive us our trespasses
771
01:06:27.690 --> 01:06:31.590
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
772
01:06:31.590 --> 01:06:34.420
and lead us not into temptation,
773
01:06:34.420 --> 01:06:36.800
but deliver us from evil.
774
01:06:36.800 --> 01:06:38.930
For thine is the kingdom
775
01:06:38.930 --> 01:06:40.300
and the power
776
01:06:40.300 --> 01:06:41.883
and the glory, forever.
777
01:06:42.848 --> 01:06:43.681
Amen.
778
01:06:48.873 --> 01:06:51.956
(church organ plays)
779
01:08:25.459 --> 01:08:30.042
(choir sings "Gloria in excelsis Deo")
780
01:12:50.630 --> 01:12:54.730
Mighty God, send down Thy holy spirit upon us
781
01:12:54.730 --> 01:12:56.680
to cleanse our hearts,
782
01:12:56.680 --> 01:12:58.460
to hallow our gifts,
783
01:12:58.460 --> 01:13:01.913
and to perfect the offering of ourselves unto you.
784
01:13:03.100 --> 01:13:06.123
In the name of the one who gave all, amen.
785
01:13:23.109 --> 01:13:26.192
(church organ plays)
786
01:17:21.270 --> 01:17:24.550
And now may the God of peace bless us
787
01:17:24.550 --> 01:17:28.510
and make us perfect in every good work to do God's will,
788
01:17:28.510 --> 01:17:32.720
working in us that which is well pleasing in God's sight.
789
01:17:32.720 --> 01:17:35.030
Through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
790
01:17:37.022 --> 01:17:42.022
♪ Amen ♪
791
01:17:43.034 --> 01:17:48.034
♪ Amen ♪
792
01:17:49.092 --> 01:17:54.092
♪ Amen ♪
793
01:17:55.465 --> 01:18:00.465
♪ Amen ♪
794
01:18:03.033 --> 01:18:04.950
♪ Amen ♪
795
01:18:13.371 --> 01:18:15.288
♪ Amen ♪
796
01:18:25.974 --> 01:18:27.891
♪ Amen ♪
797
01:18:47.095 --> 01:18:50.178
(church organ plays)
798
01:22:56.784 --> 01:22:59.534
(muffled voices)