- Duke University Baccalaureate Service May 11th, 1980, Duke Chapel. (organ music playing) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing continues) (organ music playing continues) (choir singing) (organ music playing) (organ music playing and congregation singing) (organ music playing and congregation singing continues) 

- Be seated. There are a number of people standing, so as you're getting adjusted let me invite those of you who can to move toward the center aisle if you will so that persons who are standing may be seated if at all possible. How lovely is Thy dwelling place, oh Lord of Hosts. My soul longs, yea faints, for the courts of the Lord, my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Blessed are those who dwell in the house of the Lord, ever singing praise to God. What a joyful, blessed, beautiful moment this is. The beauty of new day, the gladness of a time of worship and celebration. May grace, mercy and peace from the Lord our God be with you. Let us now with one voice confess our sin to the Lord our God. Let us pray. Oh God, in who's mystery we abide and by who's mercy we are redeemed we confess our sin against one another and against You. All our transgressions hidden and open, the evil done and the goodness left undone. We have deceived ourselves about our ourselves, and worn masks, and not trusted in love. We confess that we have been careful with things, careless with persons, adept in taking, awkward in giving, in love with our fears, and in fear of our loves. We confess before You that we are more prone to sin than to obedience, prompt to gratify our bodies, slow to nourish our souls, attached to the pleasure of sins, negligent of things spiritual, wuick in the service of self, slack in the service of others, eager to get, reluctant to give, full of good intentions, hesitant to fulfill them, severe with our neighbors, indulgent with ourselves, helpless apart from You, yet unwilling to be bound to You. Forgive us, lift us up, and heal us this day. We pray in Your holy name. Amen. As we continue in prayer let us offer to God our personal words of confession. Surely the Lord is in this place. How awesome is this place, for this is none other than the house of God and this is the gate of Heaven. Receive now, dear friends, the forgiveness and new life that the Lord our God offers us. As forgiven and reconciled people, let us serve the Lord our God and love one another as God in Christ loves us. Amen. (organ music playing) (choir singing) May I welcome you this morning to this place and to this very special service. A special word of welcome to those of you who graduate and I do want to assure all of you mothers and fathers that this is where they sit every Sunday morning, it's just that they don't always wear caps and gowns, and they don't always have Myrtle Beach suntans either. (congregation laughing) We are delighted to have those who will be honored, not only in this service, but who will be honored again this afternoon by the conferring of degrees. This is your day, this is your occasion, and so we welcome you and we welcome all friends and family. Those of you who have shared in these years with them, given them your love, and support, and watched over and stayed with them through thick and thin, and come now to celebrate this good, and glad, and holy time. We are glad that you are here. Our preacher for the Baccalaureate Services this weekend, for all three of the Baccalaureate Services we are having, is the Reverend Dr. W. Kenneth Goodson, presiding bishop of the Richmond area of the United Methodist Church. Bishop Goodson is a native of North Carolina, he graduated from Catawba College and from the Divinity School of Duke University. He is a man whose life and ministry over the years has shown the significance of the place of the Church in higher education, and of higher education in the life of the Church. A man who has had the highest honors and has held the highest offices that the Church can confer upon anyone, at least can confer upon anyone in this life. He has been a bishop in the United Methodist Church for 20 years, served one term as the president of the Council of Bishops, as president of the Board of Global Ministries, and as president of the Board of Discipleship. He holds honorary degrees from a number of colleges and universities, including Duke University. I believe all of this has happened because one of our own has been a true preacher of the Word through the years and a genuine, caring, loving pastor, as he has related to lay people and clergy in his ministry. He loves Duke University and has given many hours of support and care to the Divinity School and to the University as a member of the Board of Trustees and in other ways. He serves now as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Duke Endowment. He has preached twice already, and will preach for us for this very special occasion. We welcome his wife, Martha Goodson, to this service and back to Duke. We welcome both of you, Bishop Goodson, and we look forward to the Word of God as you will bring it to us for this day. 

- 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 Old Testament lesson is the first Psalm. "Blessed is the man who walks not "in the counsel of the wicked, "nor stands in the way of sinners, "nor sits in the seat of the scoffers. "But his delight is in the law of the Lord, "and on His law doth he meditates day and night. "He is like a tree planted by the streams of water "that yields its fruit in its season "and its leaf does not wither, "in all that he does, he prospers. "The wicked are not so, "but alike the chaff which the wind drives away. "Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, "nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous "for the Lord knows the way of the righteous, "but the way of the wicked will perish." Will the congregation please stand for the reading of the Gospel. The Gospel lesson is from John, chapter eight, verses 30 though 32. "As he spoke thus many believed in him. "Jesus then said, 'If you continue in my Word, "you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth, "and the truth will make you free.'" Here endeth the Gospel lesson. Amen. (organ music playing) (choir and congregation singing) Be seated. President Sanford has given to me an unforgettable weekend, one that so long as I shall live I will remember and carry in the deep recesses of my own heart and of my own spirit. It not only has been an unforgettable weekend, for me it has been a frightening weekend, for anyone who has been a student, particularly in a theological seminary on this campus for as long as a single semester, immediately sets apart in his own mind and in his own heart the Duke Chapel and believes for the rest of his life, and in my case, for the rest of my ministry that there is no place anywhere on Earth quite like this. It was here that we sat as students. It was here that we brought some of the perplexing ideas of our own mind, and our own heart, and our own spirit, and listened to the quiet refrains of an organ more than 40 years ago as we tried to wrestle out in our minds and in our own spirits and the manner of our own lives and the manner of our own ministries, and all this comes fresh to me again as I come to what has almost come to be my home on a weekend. There will be many who will do far more excellent than I will do in the next 20 to 25 minutes, but there are none who would come to a higher privilege to be here and who would love Duke University more. For more than 40 years of my life, for almost 50 years of my life, I have yelled myself hoarse at the victories of the Blue Devils, and every now and again have gone off alone to cry at their misfortunes. But it's a real joy, and it's a great thrill, and it's a great honor to come. Let me read the text for the morning you would find it as President Sanford read it a minute ago in the 32nd verse of the eight chapter of the Gospel according to Saint John. Jesus said to those who were listening to him, if you continue in my Word then are ye my disciples and you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free. When Edward Gibbon had completed his famous work, "The Decline and the Fall of the Roman Empire," he laid down his pen and he went for a walk in his garden. At first, his emotions were of elation now that the task is over. "But my pride soon humbled," he wrote in his memoirs, "and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, "by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave "of an old and agreeable companion." Most of us, I believe, come to Commencements with mixed emotions like these. Happy and exalted, examinations are over, you don't have an eight o'clock in the morning, and there are no more examinations to be done. Hallelujah, 'tis done, that great transaction's done. You're through. (congregation laughing) And you can lay down your pens, and you can go for a walk across the campus, and like Edward Gibbon, you can be delighted and elated that the task is over. But you refuse to take an everlasting leave. You will come again, as I have come again, as others before you and before me have come again, in memory and in person to visit the campus again with our old and agreeable companion. In preparation of a Baccalaureate Address, the temptation is great for one to slip into the role of a teacher and try to make a scholastic approach to the subject. That would be all right for me, for whatever else religion must be, it must always be intellectually respectable. Or I might assume the role of a statesman and it would, I assure you, be a mere assumption, and talk about problems and panaceas of our time, and this would be proper and permissible for I do not know a moment in human history when which there have been more problems and there have been more panaceas, and the human family is crying out, is there any balm in Gilead. But I want you to know that I am thoroughly impressed with the thought that there is no time in my life when I should speak more as a minister of the Gospel than I speak to you now. I did not come to you, I have too much respect for that, and for you, I did not come to you today with a collection of pious platitudes to remind you that you're standing at the crossroads. I do not believe that your generation is standing anyplace. You're a generation constantly on the move. I didn't come to tell you that this is a momentous crossroads event in your own life. If you do not know that now, there is no need in my reminding you of it. I did not come to tell you that these are troublesome days. If you did not know that by now, there is no way that I can explain it. I did not come to remind you that moral values are on trial and that we're once more living in old arena of a new sophistication. If you did not know that, there is no way that I can explain it. I did come to talk to you a bit about your education and about you, and about the human equation in the world where the human equation is not always as important as we would want it to me. I came to talk to you about your life and about your relationship to your generation. Christian education is what Duke proposes to do, at its best must be an impulse, an impulse that shall determine the new and the better world than which we have, and where you have a stake, and where I have a stake, and where I have put out a claim. We fall into the error every now and again of thinking that education is merely the accumulation of facts. This is part of education to be sure, and no rationally-minded man would deny it, but it is only a half truth. Brilliance could be our salvation, but brilliance without morality and dedication could also be our doom. In popular current thought, there are really three ideas of education. One is that it's ornamental, it's the in thing to have a diploma. When I was in school, it was the in thing to have a fraternity pin. And when I came to this university I came out of a small, liberal arts, church-related college that had less than 400 students and there were no fraternities, and all my life I wanted to be in one, and I pledged when I was in theological school, and preachers don't pledge much to fraternities. But I did and had a perfectly delightful time. And then the time came for initiation and graduation, for initiation into the lodge itself, and I remember well the initiation fee was $90. $90 in 1935. $90 would have put a new roof on the chapel. It represented a fourth of what my little church paid me annually, so I couldn't do it. And I set a record, I was a pledge for 35 years. (congregation laughing) Which is a bit abnormal, and yet I never was allowed to do it because I didn't have the $90. And then in due season, when I was the bishop of the Church in Birmingham, Alabama 36 years later the officers of the Order of Kappa Alpha came to me and said, "We would like to have "a special initiation and initiate you "at long last into the Order, "and the National Chapter has given us "the privilege of doing it, "and your credentials are in order." And I was initiated a member of the Lodge. And immediately, though long since had I passed its glamor, bought myself a fraternity pin with all the jewels and all the diamonds. You needed one, you should have one, it was necessary to me, it was the ornamental part of education not entirely to be despised. It gave me a status. And then there is the feeling that education is not only ornamental, it's good to have a college diploma, and one that you can hang on the wall and show. It is also commercial. Every now and again, I get a bit weary of the rotary speakers who've been to our club to remind us of the advantages of college. You can get a better salary than if you did not go. I would not underestimate the meaning of the importance of it, I simply would remind you that education is infinitely more than this. But there is another idea of education traced back to Plato. Education is to create a craving for the good, and the true, and the beautiful. It is then, it appears to me, part of your task to recapture this ideal of education and life, and purify it by religious faith until it is built into our modern life. It is still a sad commentary on American life, with all of its towering cathedrals like this and with its great halls of learning, that we are thrilled and amused by the cheap, and the vulgar, and the unclean. Cannot fill the movie house unless it's X. Your generation would do well to remember what my generations seems to have forgotten. Woodrow Wilson put it in unusual terms, that civilization cannot be saved materially until it has been redeemed spiritually. The Baccalaureate Service is a unique service in our lives. The very fact that a representative of religion is invited to have one of the last words with you before you graduate symbolizes the truth that while religion does not dictate the curricular, it does gather up the threads of all the subjects and gives them unity, and purpose, and meaning for life. Now that you're about to receive the long-awaited diploma I think there's some obligations on your part and I come now to talk to you about your obligations rather than our gifts to you. I think there are some obligations on your part as a result of the education that you have received at Duke University. I wanted to say four things to you and then we shall go. First is the obligation to see clearly. Certainly the age in which we live calls for men of vision, people of vision, for as Daniel reminded us a good many years ago that where there is no vision, the people perish. While a later prophet reminded us that your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. A nonsense about the feeling that no person has a right to a diploma whose soul is locked up to all of the magnificent opportunities that await him or her when he or she walks across the college stage and onto life's stage. There is a line which Saint Paul writes, which Dr. Moffet translates, "The spiritual man is alive to all true values." After all, it isn't what you see with the physical eye, but that which flashes upon the inward eye that inspires our attitudes and gives us a wholesome outlook upon life. Educated, sure. You are now obligated to see clearly. I wish every now and again that education and religion both could appeal more to young people on the grounds of what they're missing, rather than on the grounds of what they mustn't. Young people have an idea that religion is a straitjacket put over them by their elders in order to make them behave. Religion and education go together. When the University called and asked me for a subject for today's message, over and over again in my own mind I've been wrestling with the seal of Duke University. I looked at it again this morning as I looked at it again on yesterday. A round circle and over the top of the circle two words: Eruditio et Religio. In the center of it a cross. Eruditio. How cold facts would be unless appropriated by a warm heart. How cold and unreasonable religion can get when it becomes unfounded on reality. Eruditio, all that you've learned, and all that you know, and all that you've accumulated, and all that you've brought together. As I came down the aisle, even this morning, as well as yesterday, I saw the disciplines out of which you have come, now to face your graduation. Among you there are engineers, and there are scientists, and there are physicians, and there are nurses, and there are theologians, and there are ministers and there are undergraduates getting their Baccalaureate degree. All of us are here together. Eruditio, what do you know? Well that is an inadequate question that can only bring an inadequate answer. Eruditio et Religio, not only what do you know, but who are you, and what is the faith that motivates and propels your life. What are the ideals that you would bet your life on? You see, the right and the wrong use of knowledge is strikingly illustrated in the life of Aaron Burr. Two well-known American characters, one would be Aaron Burr, and one would be Abraham Lincoln. Aaron Burr, one of the most brilliant minds that America has ever produced, still stands as one of Princeton University's highest academic accomplishments. But Aaron Burr was morally bankrupt. Abraham Lincoln, educated by the light of a pine knot, using borrowed books in a leaky cabin, broadened his spirit and deepened his sympathies that he became one of our best-educated men. I only came to remind you that there is no education without character. That's the message of the seal of your university. That not only is the obligation to see clearly, there is the obligation on the part of the intelligent man to think. Henry van Dyke was right when he said, "To think without confusion clearly should be "one of the prime goals of life." Man, with his mind has mastered the forces of nature and has made them his slaves. He touches the soil and makes it provide him food and nourishment. He speaks to the hills and they give up their ore and their precious gold. He commands the winds and the clippers carry him to the end of the Earth. He speaks to the lightning and his voice is heard in a hundred places. Ah, men, what potential thou hast. We lived once in Birmingham, Alabama and the department stores of that lovely city have an annual sale day, and they make you think they're reducing everything they have to a bare nothing, and maybe they are, and on that day annually I took my teenage high school daughter shopping. We'd gone over to the department store and had accumulated all the bargains that the Visa and the Master charge allow you to have. (congregation chuckling) And then we started out the door and there was a counter, a counter full of miscellaneous things. And then there was a counter that had a beautifully printed sign on it. I leave it with you. The sign said, "If dreams were for sale, what would you buy today?" A dream of a world at peace, a dream of a world of order, a dream of a world of moral decency, a dream of a world when men shall beat their swords, and the plow shears, and their spears, and their pruning hooks. I dream of a world when the nasty word of disease shall no longer frighten our people. I only wanted to ask this class, if dreams were for sale, what would you buy? Mere intellect is never enough, for another obligation of education is nobility of character. Brilliant intellect may be just as cold as an icicle and quite as useless. The greatest danger we face in the world today is that our minds may outrun our spirits. Look in the field on atomic research. We're thrilled to think of its possibilities for mankind, we shudder to think of its possibilities for history. I climbed the narrow, little steps in houses of Parliament more than a dozen years ago to hear Mr. Winston Churchill address the English government on England's preparation against the atomic bomb. The little man who so deeply mastered the English language and around whom the hopes of the free world were written for a while, looked out at his colleagues in Parliament and said to them, "We are gathered here to discuss ways of "protecting ourselves against atomic annihilation. "May I say to you that the only guarantee "against atomic annihilation "is in the character of the people who have the bomb." Just as sure as I can be, as I stand here with you this moment, that character and knowledge together are our only hope. As I am that knowledge without character can seal our doom and bring the end of decent civilization as we understand it. Eruditio et Religio. What do you know? What manner of person are you? What do you believe? In the middle of it there is a cross reminding us of the only solvent personality in the history of the world's bankruptcy. Education also imposes upon you, and I say it only briefly, education imposes upon you the obligation to serve sacrificially. You have been trained in one of America's great universities by one of America's great faculties, what are you going to do with it? Day before yesterday as we were riding here I was quietly in my own mind celebrating the 114th anniversary of my father's birth. Long since has he gone to what Dr. Paul Green referred to last night as the Celestial City. He grew up out on the mud banks of a little river in North Carolina known as the Catawba River where the opportunities for advancement were not much and his education consisted of an occasional day in a one-room building where an itinerant teacher would come by and stake out his claim. I grew up in a town in the state that had the first, we thought it was, the first million-dollar high school. Our high school had a short-wave radio station, it had the makings of elevator shafts at each end of the hall, we had private lockers and revolving cafeterias, and everything that 50 years ago a modern high school had. People came from far and wide to see it and one day I took my father to see it. We rode in front of its yellow brick structure, and I parked the family car, and said, "There it is." Then I looked at my dad and said to him, "Old fella, what would you have given "to have gone to a school like that?" And I could tell that I'd hurt him, and all the regret of his life flashed to the surface. But he was too much the man to reply. So after a while we rode on and in a few moments he laid his hand upon my knee as I drove, and he said, "Son, "may I remind you, and you never forget, "that to whom much has been given, Duke University has given you itself, blue and white will ever be yours, the Blue Devils will ever be yours, the brains and the intellect of the faculty and the administration will ever be yours. I only wanted to remind you that to whom much is given, much shall be required. Would you bow your heads for a moment? In the beauty and in the quietness of this lovely place we commit ourselves to all that is good, fine, decent, and whatsoever things that of good report enable us to think upon those things. may we never forget that in the midst of them is a cross and he who hangs upon that cross is in the midst of history. Hear our prayers through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

- Will you stand please? With one voice let us 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. 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. 

- Let us pray. Be seated please. Oh Lord, our God, it is good to come to a moment such as this, a moment of recognition, of accomplishment, of joy and celebration. We give thanks to You, oh Lord, for all that has been good, enlightening, maturing, and enriching in this place. These have been times and days filled with change, with questions, with unease, with good times, and sad times, with work and rest, with action and reflection, with movement and with calm. Times, oh God, that have bound us to one another in friendships that will last forever, that have stirred us and stretched us in such helpful ways that we dare not go back to our old selves, old thoughts, and old ways. Times filled with long days, difficult and yet rewarding hours of study, and struggles that have brought deep and lasting satisfaction. Times spent searching, oh God, for self, for others, for truth, and justice, and right. Times, oh God, for those who graduate that have reshaped, remolded and remade life. Help us all now to know that Commencement is not end, but beginning. That the end of this experience is where we being all over again. We give thanks for the efforts of all teachers who's lives have influenced these who graduate, for a staff of deans, counselors, president, and others who really do care about each one, for the support that has come from family, and friends, and often even from strangers unaware, for the commitment each graduate has had to reach this point in life, for their long hours of work and study, for determination and perseverance, and now for the much inner satisfaction which they know. Oh God, for each one make of learning a lifelong experience, make of serving a lifelong action, make of sharing a lifelong desire, make of being obedient to You a lifelong commitment. With gratitude that You have brought us this far we pray for Your help in the time to come that all our lives may add to the fullness, the goodness, and the wholeness of this world and of all we meet along the way. We pray, oh God, in the name of him who came teaching, learning, serving and loving, and hear us now as we pray together. Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be 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 Kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen. (organ music playing) ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, amen ♪ (choir singing continues) ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ (choir singing continues) ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia, amen ♪ (choir continues singing) ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ (choir continues singing) ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia, amen, amen, alleluia, amen ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ ♪ Alleluia ♪ ♪ Amen ♪ Will you join with me now as we offer to God a unison prayer of gratitude and of hope. Let us pray. Almighty God, who has granted us place and part in this university, hallow to us now this day when we dedicate ourselves to the life and work to which You have hear called us. That we may remember with gratitude the families and friends who have cared for us. We ask Your presence, oh God, that in the life ahead of us we may keep faith with those who have love us, and trusted us, and whose hopes follow us. We ask Your presence, oh God, that we may enter with good courage and constant purpose upon the tasks which await us. We ask Your presence, oh God, from all sense of strangeness, and loneliness, and from the fear that we may fail and may find no friends. Good Lord, deliver us from neglect of the opportunities which are all about us, and from distrust of our ability to meet the duties of each dawning day. Good Lord, deliver us, that the example of wise and generous people who have gone before us here at this university may save us from folly and self-indulgence. We ask Your presence, oh God, most especially that You would show to us and to all people the way of love in a time desperately in need of persons who care. We ask Your presence, oh God, these things and whatever else You see needful and right for us, we ask in Your holy name. Amen. (organ music playing)