- Duke University Chapel, service of worship. April 23rd, 1978. (chattering) (organ music) (soft music) (choir singing) (soft music) (choir singing) 

- All praise to God who creates, redeems and sustains us. And who came in Jesus Christ, not to place heavy burdens of guilt on us, but to set free those who are imprisoned, whose hearts accuse us. We have been promised that God's forgiveness is always waiting for us. With this assurance, let us make our corporate confession of sin. Let us pray. Lord God, forgive your church, its wealth among the poor, its fear among the unjust, its cowardice among the oppressed. Forgive us, your children, our lack of confidence in you, our lack of hope in your future, our lack of faith in your presence, our lack of love in your mercy. Restore us to your covenant. Bring us to true repentance. Teach us to accept the price. Make us strong with the comfort of your Holy Spirit. Break us where we are strong. Make us where we are weak. Shame us where we trust ourselves. Name us where we have lost ourselves. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. Amen. God does forgive us. We can go on again. God offers to us wholeness and health. Accept this and become the new creation. Let us give thanks for God is good. God's love is everlasting. Thanks be to God who forgives us. Thanks be to God whose grace and mercy... Thanks be to God who leads us into the future. This is a joyous day. A day to rejoice and give thanks. Tonight at 7PM there will be an hour organ concert played on the Benjamin N. Duke Memorial organ by Fenna Douglass with four assisting artists. They will play an all Bach program. The third and final concert in memory of Professor Julia Mulock. It is only because I promised Dr. Fouley that I would make a very short introduction that I do not tell you in specific and in much detail why it is very special to have him preach for us. He is a devout Roman Catholic leman. One of Duke's most outstanding scholars and favorite teachers. For years people have wished for the privilege of hearing Dr. Fouley preach from this pulpit. And as many of you know, he retires this year. We are grateful to you, Dr. Fouley, for this day moving from the classroom to the chapel. And we await your word with open hearts and minds. 

- Let us pray. Prepare our hearts, oh Lord, to accept your word. Silence in us any voice but your own. That hearing we may also obey your will. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. The first lesson is from the 11th chapter of Ecclesiastes, verses six to nine, and 12 and 13. In the morning sow your seed. And at evening, withhold not your hand. For you do not know which will prosper. This or that. Or whether both alike will be good. Light is sweet and it is pleasant for the eyes to behold the sun. For if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all. But let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity. Rejoice oh young men, in your youth and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth. Walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things, God will bring you into judgment. The end of the matter, all has been heard. Fear God and keep His commandments. For this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing whether good or evil. The second lesson is from the 21st chapter of Revelation, verses one to 6A. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. And the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. Prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling of God is with men. He will dwell with them and they shall be His people. And God Himself will be with them. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. And death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away. And He who sat upon the throne said, behold, I make all these things new. Also He said, write this, for these words are trustworthy and true. And He said to me, it is done. I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give water of life. Here ends the reading for the first and second lessons, amen. (soft music) (choir singing) (woman singing opera) (choir singing) (woman singing opera) (choir singing) Will the congregation stand for the reading of the Gospel lesson. The lesson is from the ninth chapter of Luke, verses 57 to 62. As they were going along the road, a man said to him, I will follow you wherever you go. And Jesus said to him, foxes have holes. And birds of the air have nests. But the son of man has no where to lay his head. To another he said, follow me. But he said, Lord let me first go and bury my father. But he said to him, leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God. Another said, I will follow you, Lord. But let me first say farewell to those at my home. Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. Here ends the reading from the Gospel. All praise and glory be to God, amen. (soft organ music) (choir singing) 

- It is a privilege for me this morning to present to you what must be called a sermon, but what I prefer to think of as the sharing with you of a few thoughts about a passage from the Gospels. I'm not following the church calendar because Easter was a few weeks ago, and for my text I'm going back to a moment before the resurrection. I think this liberty should be granted to a man who is giving his first sermon, which in all likelihood will be his only sermon. The title of this sermon if I gave it one would be simply, I think the word, Belief. And in order to approach a possible meaning of belief, I am taking one of the last seven words spoken by our Lord on the cross. One of the thieves crucified with Christ, has just said to him, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus answers him and this is my text, today thou shall be with me in paradise. A very personal reason is behind my choice of this particular text. Throughout a large part of my life I have hoped to hear a sermon on it and I never have. It has always seemed to me the most dramatic of all the statements made by Christ. Even more than dramatic is that it is a sentence charged with meanings that proliferate and quickly go beyond our powers of comprehension. Let me take a minute to review what had immediately preceded this central moment in the history of the world. It came at the end of eight days, when Israel had been darkened. When the Gentile world had been blinded. And when the son of man had been handed over. On the first of those eight days, the one we call Palm Sunday, Jesus returned to Jerusalem, officially returned for the celebration of the Passover. During the years of His preaching, He had made only very brief and almost furtive appearances in Jerusalem. His preaching and His charity on the whole had been confined to obscure corners of Galilee. But the time had come for the prophecies to be fulfilled. The events, as you remember, took place swiftly. He was betrayed, he was taken over by the authorities, reviled, imprisoned, forced to carry His cross, nailed to His cross, and then elevated on the cross. The French poet, Paul Clodell, in speaking of these last days of Christ's life, has found what seems to me an admirable metaphor to describe Christ. A great stag at bay stumbling in the midst of the dogs. (speaking foreign language) It is, of course, the picture of the final scandal. We should not forget that almost everything He said, almost everything He did had appeared scandalous to many. Possibly to the majority. He upset the chosen people on the seventh day of the week. And we might say that He upset the Gentiles on all the other days of the week. This moment on the cross is one of supreme clarification. It reminds us of that moment in the life of Adam, Christ's great ancestor, when he was expelled from the garden. It reminds us of that atoning animal that we read of in Leviticus. The scapegoat loaded with the sins of the people and sent out into the desert. Now it is the son of man expelled from the world. The final picture we have of our Lord as a man is Christ raised on the stocks above the earth. From that last stopping place, we can hear Him say seven words. The first is a general word of pardon of all those who participated in the crucifixion. Father, forgive them. They do not know what it is they are doing. The second word is often interpreted as the founding of His church, when He speaks to His mother, and to His disciple, John. Woman, this is thy son. This is thy mother. The third, is the very simple and yet overwhelming sentence our Lord says to one of the thieves. Today thou shall be with me in paradise. On His level, at His left and at His right were two thieves undergoing the same fate. Exposed, spread out, forming with Him one group. And thus fulfilling Isaiah's prophecy, He would be counted among the wrongdoers. These then are the two companions our Lord shows for the last hours on earth. With this third word, He establishes in relationship to Himself a right and a left. Who were these so called thieves? One of whom is impenitent and who says jeeringly to Jesus, save thyself and then save us. And the other, the penitent thief who suddenly believed and said, remember me. These men were prisoners from the jail in Jerusalem. Probably not petty thieves, but political prisoners. Men who belonged to the underground, who had participated in what we would call today guerrilla warfare against the Romans. Men of violence, revolutionists, strong personalities. One of them remains unbelieving. But the other, on the right hand, is stirred by the sight of Jesus enduring His punishment. And abruptly, unexpectedly knows himself to be in the presence of God. And Jesus sensitive as He always was to the slightest movement of the spirit in others, knows that He is not dying alone and unloved. This story of the two thieves, which is almost a parable, has a counterpart in contemporary literature in the two tramps of Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Gordo. At the beginning of the play, Vladimir, the more optimistic, the more hopeful tramp is meditating precisely on this Bible story. And he says, one of the thieves was saved. Then there is a pause while Escago, the pessimist, pulls off his boot that is paining his foot. And Vladimir continues. One of the thieves was saved. It's a reasonable percentage. This seems to mean that salvation is a 50/50 chance. A bit later, Vladimir resumes the dialogue with the question, how's your foot, swelling visibly. The two thieves, shall I tell you the story? No. Do you remember the story? No. It'll pass the time. And then like many Bible exegesis, like many Bible scholars, Vladimir wonders why only one of the evangelists, it was Saint Luke, speaks of one thief being saved. And he grumbles a bit as the scholars grumble. As he says the four of them were there or thereabouts the effect of the dialogue is to make us, the spectators if we're in the theater, identify the glib Vladimir and the resentful Escago with the two thieves. And to see both sets, thieves and tramps, as dividing all humanity into two groups. Believers and non-believers. Beckett knew the famous use that St. Augustine made of this story, when he advised, do not presume one thief was damned. Do not despair, one thief was saved. I suppose the hardest question for us to answer concerning this episode is how did the good thief come to believe that Christ would be king after His death? And the only possible answer involves certainly the power of grace and the best perhaps we can say is, he was touched by the spirit of truth. He must have realized at that moment that we come into the world, that we come into existence through God's love. The thief uses a messianic term in his statement. When thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus in His answer uses a word He never used in His preaching, another messianic term which is used only three times in the Old Testament and only three times in the New Testament. It is the Persian word, paradise, meaning orchard or royal park. Today thou shall be with me in paradise. The word today in this sentence means of course, the future, the immediate future after death. I know I don't need to remind you, but I'm going to because it is the point of my sermon. Human experience, human wisdom, human history have not told us, have not given us an explanation of what paradise is. Perhaps this is our best clue. Grace in one instant came to the thief. Not only was he absolved by Christ, he was sanctified. Might even say he was canonized. It's perhaps the only canonization that took place without a great ceremony. It is, I think, the most spectacular story of belief in the Bible. Even more spectacular than the story of Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul. I say more spectacular because Paul was always a good man, a highly moral man. The scene was not one to inspire any hope. Everything around the dying thief seemed God forsake him. And yet, he knew by his proximity to Jesus that he was on the edge of the kingdom of God. When he said, remember me, he knew that this man was the king on His way to His kingdom. The astronomer Copernicus is buried in the Cathedral of Frombork, originally in Prussia, today in Poland. On his tomb is an epitaph in Latin said to have been composed by Copernicus himself. In English it would read this way. I ask not the faith Saint Paul received, nor the grace Saint Peter obtained. But what you gave to the thief on the cross, grant me. These words in the epitaph receive, obtain, grant lead me to conclude with this thought that by converting an action that had placed him in jail, the thief in turning to our Lord quite literally stole paradise. Let us pray. Father of love and power. We pray that you give some degree of the faith of the good thief to all of your children throughout the world. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be world without end, amen. (soft organ music) (choir singing) 

- My dear people, let us now affirm what we believe. We believe in God, who has created and is creating. Who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile and make new. Who works in us by others, by the Spirit. We trust God who calls us to be the church. To celebrate life and its fullness. To love and serve others. To seek justice and resist evil. To proclaim Jesus crucified and risen. Our judge and our hope. In life, in death, in life beyond death God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. The Lord be with you. 

- And with your spirit. 

- And now let us pray. God our Father, you will all people to be saved and come to the knowledge of your truth. Send workers into your great harvest that the Gospel may be preached to every creature and to your people. Gathered together by the word of life and strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. That your people may thus advance in the way of salvation and love. Pour out on us the spirit of understanding, of truth and of true peace. Help us to strive with all our hearts to know what is pleasing to you, oh Lord. And when we know your will, make us determined to carry it out. Almighty and eternal God, keep together those you have united. Look kindly on all who follow Jesus your son. We are all consecrated to you by our common baptism. We implore you, make us one in the fullness of faith and keep us one in the fellowship of love. We ask all of this through Jesus Christ, your son and our Lord forever and ever. Amen. And now let us rise as a Christian community and pray to the Father in the words that Jesus Himself gave us. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the power, the kingdom, and the glory, amen. (soft music) (choir singing in foreign language) ♪ Praise God from whom all blessings flow ♪ ♪ Praise Him all creatures here below ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Praise Him above ye heavenly host ♪ ♪ Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ ♪ Hallelujah ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ 

- We give you thanks, oh God, for a universe beyond belief. For a world of possibilities beyond dreams. For this year and the opportunities which were ours. For the friends who cared for us. For the struggles, which brought us new visions of truth. For the word of hope which comes to us. Oh God we thank you for the future which we move into with confidence because we know that we will be sustained by your grace. And we pray that you will bless this offering. Symbols of our dedication to your work of justice and mercy. And bless us that we may go forth serving you. We pray in the spirit of Jesus the Christ, amen. (organ music) (choir singing) The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is yours this day and forever more. (choir singing) ♪ Amen ♪ (organ music) (intense music)