Clarence G. Newsome - "Righteous Anger" (August 27, 1978)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| Announcer | Duke University Chapel service of worship. | 0:02 |
| (pipe organ music) | 0:26 | |
| Woman | All joy, amen. | 8:09 |
| (pipe organ music) | 8:15 | |
| (choir singing) | 8:26 | |
| Let us humbly confess our sins to almighty God. | 12:16 | |
| Oh God of truth and fact, | 12:21 | |
| forgive us for the myths we generate | 12:26 | |
| about our heritage to falsify the past, | 12:30 | |
| about ourselves to hide our present faults, | 12:35 | |
| about those strange to us to justify our lack of charity. | 12:40 | |
| Give us courage to seek, | 12:47 | |
| and to face all truth. | 12:50 | |
| Give us humility to see with less distortion, | 12:53 | |
| and give us grace to act upon the truth | 12:58 | |
| of Your spirit leads us to perceive. | 13:02 | |
| Amen. | 13:07 | |
| As the heaven is high above the Earth, | 14:01 | |
| so great is God's mercy toward those who fear God. | 14:04 | |
| As far as the East is from the West, | 14:09 | |
| so far has God removed our sins from us. | 14:12 | |
| Amen. | 14:17 | |
| Let us give thanks, for God is good, | 14:20 | |
| and God's love is everlasting. | 14:24 | |
| Thanks be to God who creates us, | 14:27 | |
| thanks be to God by whose mercy we are redeemed, | 14:31 | |
| thanks be to God whose spirit leads us into the future. | 14:36 | |
| We welcome as our preacher | 14:43 | |
| this morning the Reverend Clarence G. Newsome, | 14:45 | |
| who is a member of the faculty at the Duke Divinity School. | 14:49 | |
| - | [Reverend Newsome] Let us pray. | 15:05 |
| Prepare our hearts, oh Lord, | 15:07 | |
| to accept Your word. | 15:10 | |
| Silence in us any voice but Your own, | 15:12 | |
| that hearing, we may also obey Your will. | 15:16 | |
| Through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen. | 15:21 | |
| Will the congregation stand for | 15:25 | |
| the reading of the gospel lesson? | 15:27 | |
| The lesson is from the 21st chapter of Matthew, | 15:33 | |
| verses 12 through 16. | 15:36 | |
| "And Jesus entered the temple of God, | 15:40 | |
| "and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, | 15:42 | |
| "and he overturned the tables of money changers, | 15:46 | |
| "and the seats of those who sold pigeons. | 15:49 | |
| "He said to them, it is written, | 15:52 | |
| "my house shall be called a house of prayer, | 15:56 | |
| "but you make it a den of robbers, | 15:58 | |
| "and the blind, and the lame came to him in the temple, | 16:01 | |
| "and he healed them, | 16:06 | |
| "but when the chief priest and the scribes saw | 16:07 | |
| "the wonderful things that he did, | 16:09 | |
| "and the children crying out in the temple, | 16:12 | |
| "God bless the son of David, | 16:14 | |
| "they were indignant, and they said to him, | 16:17 | |
| "do you hear what these are saying? | 16:20 | |
| "And Jesus said to them, yes. | 16:23 | |
| "Have you never read out of | 16:27 | |
| "the mouth of babes and sucklings, | 16:30 | |
| "though haste bought perfect praise." | 16:32 | |
| Here ends the reading of the gospel. | 16:36 | |
| All praise and glory be to God. | 16:38 | |
| Amen. | 16:41 | |
| (pipe organ music) | 16:43 | |
| (choir singing) | 17:14 | |
| Please be seated. | 17:50 | |
| Let us pray. | 18:01 | |
| Oh merciful and all wise God, | 18:05 | |
| only Thou knowest how frail a vessel I am, | 18:09 | |
| only Thou knowest how fragile | 18:14 | |
| an instrument I am to do Your deed, | 18:17 | |
| but that the words of my mouth, | 18:24 | |
| and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, | 18:26 | |
| oh Lord, my strength and my redeemer. | 18:32 | |
| Amen. | 18:37 | |
| Greetings to each of you. | 18:41 | |
| As I come before you, | 18:44 | |
| I stand, even at this moment, | 18:46 | |
| wondering whose antics I will imitate from this pulpit. | 18:50 | |
| Often times when I sit out | 18:56 | |
| where you are sitting now and look up, | 18:57 | |
| I try to determine whose style I want, | 19:01 | |
| but I am aware that there's a danger in imitation, | 19:05 | |
| many pitfalls, as I am reminded of a little story | 19:10 | |
| that I wish to share with you now before I begin my sermon. | 19:15 | |
| It's a story of a man who I am told was in New York, | 19:20 | |
| this is what they say, | 19:24 | |
| and he was seen jumping on a manhole, | 19:27 | |
| up and down, up and down, | 19:30 | |
| up and down, and he was counting, | 19:32 | |
| "44, 44, 44, 44." | 19:36 | |
| Pretty soon people began to gather around, | 19:41 | |
| and he just continued, "44, 44, 44." | 19:43 | |
| It wasn't long before somebody in the crown said, | 19:50 | |
| "I can do that. | 19:52 | |
| "I can do that, and I can do it better than you", | 19:55 | |
| and the man said, "well if you want, come on." | 19:57 | |
| The man was trying to draw some attention to himself, | 20:00 | |
| so he took the place of the other man over the manhole, | 20:04 | |
| and began to jump up and down, | 20:08 | |
| and count, "44, 44, 44." | 20:10 | |
| He had his crowd, people were watching, | 20:14 | |
| but one time when he was suspended up in the air, | 20:17 | |
| the first man reached over, | 20:23 | |
| grabbed the top of the manhole, | 20:25 | |
| and pulled it back, and the man fell straight down, | 20:26 | |
| and when that happened, the first man took the manhole, | 20:31 | |
| put it back over, the cover, | 20:35 | |
| took the man cover, put it back over the hole, | 20:37 | |
| and began to jump up and down again going, | 20:40 | |
| "45, 45, 45, 45." | 20:42 | |
| I got through that. | 20:47 | |
| There are pitfalls in imitation, | 20:49 | |
| so I'm mindful of that. | 20:52 | |
| Now I wish to express just a word of greetings also | 20:57 | |
| to the 1978 Duke University football team. | 21:02 | |
| I see many of the young men out in the congregation, | 21:07 | |
| and I welcome you especially. | 21:12 | |
| The topic of my sermon this morning | 21:17 | |
| has to do with the subject of righteous anger. | 21:21 | |
| Righteous anger. | 21:26 | |
| I have come to my topic by way of meditating | 21:31 | |
| on a portion of the 21st chapter of St. Matthew, | 21:37 | |
| and that portion, beginning with the 12th verse, | 21:43 | |
| and ending with the 16th verse. | 21:47 | |
| You heard this familiar passage read | 21:52 | |
| this morning as the scripture lesson. | 21:54 | |
| I wish now to reread it for the purpose | 21:59 | |
| of drawing your attention to its meaning, | 22:01 | |
| and if you have a Bible, if you have one with you, | 22:07 | |
| I would like for you to read silently along with me. | 22:12 | |
| "And Jesus went into the temple of God, | 22:20 | |
| "and cast out all them that sold and bought in the temple, | 22:25 | |
| "and overthrew the tables of the money changers, | 22:30 | |
| "and the seats of them that sold doves," | 22:34 | |
| or pigeons, depending on your translation, | 22:36 | |
| "and said unto them, | 22:40 | |
| "it is written my house shall be called a house of prayer, | 22:43 | |
| "but ye have made it a den of thieves, | 22:46 | |
| "and the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, | 22:50 | |
| "and then he healed them, | 22:53 | |
| "and when the chief priests and scribes saw | 22:56 | |
| "the wonderful things that he did, | 22:58 | |
| "and the children crying in the temple | 23:01 | |
| "and saying, Hosannah to the son of David, | 23:03 | |
| "they were sore displeased, | 23:06 | |
| "and said unto him, hearest thou what these say? | 23:11 | |
| "And Jesus sayeth unto them, "yea, have ye never read? | 23:16 | |
| "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, | 23:21 | |
| "thou hast perfected praise." | 23:24 | |
| Now this passage holds for me | 23:29 | |
| memories of my boyhood. | 23:33 | |
| For some reason I was always fascinated | 23:39 | |
| by the story of Jesus cleansing the temple. | 23:41 | |
| I cannot remember the first time that I heard it, | 23:46 | |
| but I can recall that each time I occasioned to hear it | 23:51 | |
| from my mother, my father, | 23:56 | |
| my grandmother, the minister at our local church, | 23:57 | |
| my Sunday school teacher, | 24:01 | |
| each time I was as enraptured | 24:04 | |
| as the preceding time. | 24:08 | |
| The very vivid, very vivid image | 24:12 | |
| of Jesus overturning tables, | 24:16 | |
| knocking over chairs, and running people out into the street | 24:19 | |
| no doubt intrigued me. | 24:24 | |
| As a matter of fact, I can recall that the effect on me | 24:28 | |
| was so great and so lasting that I would sometimes, | 24:32 | |
| it's funny how I can remember this so clearly, | 24:36 | |
| I would sometimes even before I knew how to read well, | 24:40 | |
| go to the family Bible, | 24:45 | |
| or the green backed Bible story book we had in our house, | 24:48 | |
| and hunt for the picture of Jesus cleansing the temple. | 24:54 | |
| You know how they have in some editions | 25:00 | |
| of the Bible paintings and drawings illustrating | 25:03 | |
| different Biblical stories? | 25:07 | |
| Well, the illustration of Jesus cleansing the temple, | 25:08 | |
| along with that of Joshua fit in the battle of Jericho, | 25:13 | |
| I remember that one very well, was my favorite. | 25:16 | |
| As I think back on what fascinated me, | 25:23 | |
| as I think back on what intrigued me about the story, | 25:29 | |
| I suppose it was the image of Jesus, | 25:35 | |
| and the feeling of Jesus moving | 25:38 | |
| with such evident force | 25:42 | |
| and forthrightness. | 25:45 | |
| It was even more, I suppose, the image, and the feeling, | 25:50 | |
| and the thought | 25:54 | |
| of an angry Jesus, | 25:57 | |
| and I suppose what intrigued me the most | 26:03 | |
| about the thought of an angry Jesus | 26:05 | |
| was the contrast it presented to the image of Jesus | 26:11 | |
| which was most dominant in my mind. | 26:15 | |
| This was the image of a meek, | 26:20 | |
| mild Jesus, | 26:24 | |
| a Jesus so tender of heart | 26:28 | |
| and so loving as to be almost passive. | 26:31 | |
| Although it was not intelligible to me then, | 26:39 | |
| I realize now that this contrast was, for me, | 26:44 | |
| even at a young age, | 26:49 | |
| the focal point of my attempt | 26:53 | |
| to reconcile an all loving Jesus | 26:55 | |
| with a Jesus of righteousness, | 27:01 | |
| and in as much as Jesus is the son of God, | 27:06 | |
| suppose an all loving god with a righteous God, | 27:09 | |
| yea even a wrathful God. | 27:12 | |
| Some years after the passing of my childhood, | 27:19 | |
| I learned that I had not and was not alone | 27:25 | |
| in my attempts to reconcile a loving God | 27:28 | |
| with a righteous, wrathful God, | 27:31 | |
| a loving Jesus with a righteous, wrathful Jesus. | 27:34 | |
| I learned, for example, | 27:40 | |
| that though religionists have long agreed | 27:41 | |
| that love is indispensable to | 27:43 | |
| the Christian view of God's nature, for God is love, | 27:46 | |
| there has been much, much disagreement on | 27:53 | |
| how God's righteousness, | 27:57 | |
| expressed in the form of God's wrath, | 27:59 | |
| is reconciled with God's love. | 28:02 | |
| The issue as I understand it is in no way new. | 28:08 | |
| Years and years ago, during the early days of the church, | 28:13 | |
| the theologian Marcion, for example, | 28:19 | |
| was among the first to face the problem head on. | 28:21 | |
| According to him, reconciling the Old Testament idea | 28:25 | |
| of the the righteousness of God | 28:29 | |
| with the New Testament idea | 28:31 | |
| of the love of God is impossible. | 28:33 | |
| The concept of law as he saw it | 28:36 | |
| is a complete denial of love. | 28:39 | |
| The solution thereby was to insist | 28:43 | |
| that the gospel of Christ is completely new, | 28:45 | |
| and thus has nothing to do with the concept | 28:50 | |
| of righteousness as presented in the Old Testament. | 28:53 | |
| As a result, Marcion posited the reality of two Gods, | 28:59 | |
| the creator God of the Old Testament, | 29:05 | |
| who required obedience to the law of righteousness, | 29:09 | |
| and the redeemer God of the New Testament, | 29:12 | |
| who is the good, benevolent, | 29:16 | |
| self giving God, the God of love. | 29:19 | |
| As might be expected, the church rejected Marcion's view. | 29:26 | |
| Since the early Christian community did not understand | 29:30 | |
| its existence as being completely new | 29:34 | |
| in the sense of negating the God of the Old Testament, | 29:37 | |
| they believed that they were the authentic continuation | 29:43 | |
| of the old Israel, the Noddest denial. | 29:46 | |
| Christ therefore did not destroy | 29:50 | |
| the Old Testament, he fulfilled it, | 29:53 | |
| but while the early church rejected | 29:59 | |
| Marcion's division and dichotomy | 30:01 | |
| between the Old Testament view of God's righteousness | 30:03 | |
| and the New Testament view of God's love in Jesus Christ, | 30:07 | |
| many questions and much confusion | 30:12 | |
| about the precise relationship between the two aspects, | 30:17 | |
| the two modalities, dimensions, | 30:22 | |
| call them what you will, | 30:24 | |
| of God's reality have persisted, | 30:27 | |
| even until the present day, | 30:31 | |
| In the main, | 30:36 | |
| we Christians have a tendency to regard | 30:40 | |
| God's love as the dominant motif of Christianity, | 30:43 | |
| while attempting to comprehend God's righteousness | 30:50 | |
| in the light of it, | 30:53 | |
| but this understand fails to take seriously | 30:56 | |
| the importance of God's righteousness, | 31:02 | |
| and in this connection, the importance of God's wrath, | 31:06 | |
| and tends to make, as Professor Jame Cone | 31:11 | |
| of Union Theological Seminary in New York says, | 31:15 | |
| tends to make God's love mere sentimentality. | 31:18 | |
| Think about it. | 31:23 | |
| Most of us fail to regard properly | 31:26 | |
| the significance of God's righteousness, God's wrath. | 31:31 | |
| This suggests that we tend to see God's love | 31:38 | |
| as completely self giving without | 31:41 | |
| any demand for obedience. | 31:45 | |
| You see, most of us believe in cheap grace, | 31:48 | |
| as Dietrich Bonhoeffer once put it, | 31:54 | |
| and what's more, we think, behave, and interact as if | 32:00 | |
| grace were indeed cheap. | 32:05 | |
| For some reason, perhaps a selfish reason | 32:11 | |
| with a logic all its own, | 32:18 | |
| we seem to think and act as if God | 32:22 | |
| is basically not against anybody or anything, | 32:25 | |
| and we all know according to the reasons of the heart, | 32:31 | |
| don't we, | 32:34 | |
| that that is not the case. | 32:38 | |
| How then do we reconcile God's righteousness, | 32:44 | |
| yea God's wrath, with God's love? | 32:47 | |
| In a word, and at the risk of sounding a bit like Marcion, | 32:55 | |
| but don't get ahead of me, we don't. | 33:00 | |
| Play any mental games you want, | 33:05 | |
| play any word games you want, | 33:07 | |
| it is really beyond our ability to fathom it, | 33:08 | |
| at least with the powers of the mind. | 33:12 | |
| Humble yourselves enough to admit it, | 33:18 | |
| but given the powers of the heart, we can at least, | 33:25 | |
| on the basis of faith in the reality of God, | 33:30 | |
| and mind you, I did not say belief | 33:36 | |
| in the idea of the reality of God. | 33:40 | |
| I said belief in the reality of God, | 33:46 | |
| on that basis we can come to a point of view | 33:52 | |
| which reveals to us, | 33:58 | |
| and reveals to us not as the eclipse | 34:02 | |
| of a once illuminated scene, | 34:05 | |
| that's one of my favorite phrases. | 34:06 | |
| As the theologian H. Richard Niebuhr | 34:09 | |
| once so succinctly expressed, | 34:11 | |
| "but which makes transparent to us | 34:14 | |
| "for all time that God's love and God's righteousness | 34:17 | |
| "are two ways | 34:21 | |
| of talking about the same reality." | 34:25 | |
| God's righteousness is, | 34:31 | |
| whatever else it might be, | 34:36 | |
| at least God's constant activity | 34:40 | |
| at helping each of us to become aware, | 34:43 | |
| making each of us to realize, | 34:49 | |
| requiring each of us to see, | 34:55 | |
| demanding each of our hearts to accept | 35:01 | |
| that not all we do is right, | 35:05 | |
| while God's love, | 35:13 | |
| whatever else it might be, | 35:17 | |
| is at least God's self giving to this task | 35:21 | |
| in the interest of all of us. | 35:28 | |
| It was as the embodiment of love and righteousness | 35:38 | |
| that God, in Jesus Christ, | 35:44 | |
| moved through the temple in Jerusalem | 35:46 | |
| one particular day, some 2,000 odd years ago. | 35:51 | |
| As we consider the account of this event | 35:58 | |
| as it is found not only in the book of Matthew, | 36:01 | |
| but also in the books of Mark, Luke, and John, | 36:04 | |
| there is some question about the precise day, | 36:07 | |
| whether it was at the outset of Jesus' arrival in Jerusalem, | 36:12 | |
| as suggested in Matthew, Luke, and John, | 36:16 | |
| or on a subsequent day, as suggested in Mark, | 36:21 | |
| is not important, at least not right now. | 36:23 | |
| What is important is that the scripture makes plain to us | 36:28 | |
| that Jesus' temperament on this occasion | 36:33 | |
| was one of righteous anger, | 36:37 | |
| for as we are told, he went into the temple of God, | 36:41 | |
| and cast out all of them that sold and bought in the temple, | 36:45 | |
| and overthrew the tables of the money changers, | 36:50 | |
| and the seats of them that sold animals. | 36:53 | |
| Why? | 36:59 | |
| This is a question well worth considering. | 37:03 | |
| When I first pondered this question | 37:10 | |
| during the early days of my youth, | 37:12 | |
| I concluded that Jesus acted so forcefully | 37:17 | |
| and so forthrightly because he was merely offended | 37:20 | |
| by the actions of the money changers, | 37:26 | |
| the actions of those that sold doves, | 37:29 | |
| and by the negligence of | 37:33 | |
| the high priest in charge of the temple. | 37:35 | |
| Well I'm not sure that this constituted, | 37:40 | |
| well I am sure that this constituted | 37:44 | |
| much of the reason for Jesus' reaction | 37:48 | |
| upon entering the temple, | 37:51 | |
| but now I can see that his protest, | 37:55 | |
| his wrath was directed at a problem | 37:59 | |
| much deeper than their actions. | 38:03 | |
| For when I consider what they were doing, | 38:08 | |
| I am inclined to sense and feel that Jesus | 38:12 | |
| was most likely not that upset, | 38:17 | |
| don't get ahead of me here, | 38:21 | |
| not that upset with the form of their actions. | 38:23 | |
| As a result of looking closely at the text, | 38:29 | |
| we learn, for example, | 38:33 | |
| that the money changers and those that sold animals | 38:37 | |
| were providing a needed service. | 38:40 | |
| In a modern day society such as ours, | 38:45 | |
| where we have grown such accustomed | 38:47 | |
| to 7-11 stores and the like, | 38:49 | |
| we can well identify with the kind | 38:55 | |
| of business these men operated, | 38:57 | |
| for theirs was an operation of convenience. | 38:59 | |
| Each day people from outlying areas, | 39:04 | |
| Jews and Gentiles alike, | 39:06 | |
| would arrive in Jerusalem to worship at the temple, | 39:09 | |
| the sacred and ritualistic center of Judaism. | 39:13 | |
| Once in the city, they had need of exchanging | 39:18 | |
| their coins for the standard Hebrew or | 39:22 | |
| Tyrian money, currency, which was required. | 39:25 | |
| In addition, they also had need | 39:31 | |
| of animals to sacrifice at the temple, | 39:33 | |
| animals which had been ritually cleaned, | 39:37 | |
| making it too impractical to bring | 39:41 | |
| them long distances to Jerusalem. | 39:43 | |
| So the money changers and those | 39:47 | |
| who sold sacrificial animals provided a needed service, | 39:49 | |
| and I'm inclined that this in and of itself offend Jesus, | 39:54 | |
| and curiously enough, I know it may sound odd, | 39:59 | |
| although I am sure Jesus was disturbed by their actions, | 40:04 | |
| I really do not think he was ultimately, ultimately | 40:08 | |
| bothered by the extortion | 40:13 | |
| and the graft that took place in the temple, | 40:16 | |
| or the misguided intentions of those who, | 40:21 | |
| according to the Markan account, | 40:26 | |
| used the temple as a thoroughfare, | 40:29 | |
| a short cut from one street to another, | 40:31 | |
| or ultimately bothered by the sanctions, | 40:35 | |
| tacit or otherwise, which the high priest must | 40:39 | |
| have given these fraudulent and irreverent practices | 40:44 | |
| in order for them to have taken place. | 40:50 | |
| Rather, my heart tells me | 40:55 | |
| that Jesus was most disturbed | 41:02 | |
| by the root of these actions, | 41:07 | |
| the root of this behavior. | 41:11 | |
| My heart tells me that he was most bothered | 41:16 | |
| by the fact that they acted and carried on | 41:19 | |
| as if there was no wrongdoing, | 41:24 | |
| as if what they were doing was | 41:29 | |
| in some way permissible in the eyes of God. | 41:31 | |
| He was offended by the fact that they did not see | 41:39 | |
| that not all we do is right. | 41:43 | |
| The chief priest, for example, | 41:51 | |
| the leaders of the faith, | 41:54 | |
| the custodians of God's temple | 41:56 | |
| had become blind to the errors of their ways, | 42:00 | |
| so much so that they did not even recognize | 42:06 | |
| the son of God when he appeared before them. | 42:09 | |
| Rather than join the chorus of children who, | 42:15 | |
| as we see in verses peculiar to the Matthew text, | 42:18 | |
| children who proclaimed Jesus as the messiah. | 42:22 | |
| At the sight of seeing him heal | 42:24 | |
| and do wonderful things in the temple, | 42:26 | |
| the chief priest became sore displeased. | 42:30 | |
| Can you imagine it? The leaders of the faith, | 42:35 | |
| the custodians of God's temple, | 42:41 | |
| they did not see that not all we do is right. | 42:46 | |
| For this reason, Jesus saw the need | 42:53 | |
| to react with righteous anger, | 42:57 | |
| with the wrath of God, | 43:01 | |
| so that eyes might be opened. | 43:05 | |
| Perhaps he did not move through the temple | 43:10 | |
| with a whip in hand as the Gospel of John portrays him, | 43:12 | |
| but by overturning tables and knocking over seats, | 43:16 | |
| Jesus acted with righteous anger, | 43:21 | |
| so that hearts might be opened | 43:26 | |
| even during the time of his earthly ministry | 43:30 | |
| to the fact that not all we do is right. | 43:33 | |
| When I consider the nature of our age, | 43:42 | |
| an age of test tube babies and test tube faith, | 43:48 | |
| an age in which the individual is the measure, | 43:53 | |
| an age in which whatever is willed | 44:00 | |
| and whatever feels good is right, | 44:02 | |
| I wonder if we do no need to be reminded that | 44:07 | |
| God is real, | 44:11 | |
| and that there is a dimension of his reality | 44:16 | |
| which can so forcefully and so forthrightly | 44:23 | |
| overturn the ways of each of us, | 44:27 | |
| so that all of us | 44:32 | |
| can see enough for our hearts to make plain to us | 44:36 | |
| that in this age of everything goes, | 44:44 | |
| all that goes does not go well with God. | 44:49 | |
| God is a loving god, | 45:00 | |
| but God is also a righteous god, | 45:04 | |
| and he will not be compromised. | 45:09 | |
| I have only to remind you | 45:15 | |
| of the God who mothered Heaven and Earth | 45:22 | |
| was the same God who ordered the blood, | 45:28 | |
| I have only to remind you, | 45:34 | |
| and I don't have to get too specific | 45:38 | |
| about contemporary issues, | 45:41 | |
| I only have to remind you | 45:44 | |
| that the God of Abraham, and the God of Moses, | 45:49 | |
| who freed the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, | 45:54 | |
| was the same God who kept them | 45:59 | |
| in the wilderness for 40 years. | 46:02 | |
| I don't have to remind you | 46:07 | |
| that the God who was so self giving | 46:12 | |
| that he sent his only begotten son | 46:17 | |
| so that we might have everlasting life | 46:20 | |
| was the same God who overturned the tables of the temple, | 46:25 | |
| who knocked over the seats in the temple, | 46:30 | |
| who ran the money changers out of the temple, | 46:34 | |
| who chastised the high priest | 46:38 | |
| in the temple in Jerusalem. | 46:41 | |
| The same God. | 46:47 | |
| The same God. | 46:50 | |
| I have a particular heaviness about my heart today. | 46:54 | |
| So many things as of late have seemed to burden me. | 47:01 | |
| I can hardly count | 47:08 | |
| the number of couples | 47:13 | |
| who have been friends to me and my wife over | 47:14 | |
| the last four, five years, | 47:18 | |
| I can hardly count a one that's still together, | 47:23 | |
| with the latest coming not too long ago. | 47:28 | |
| Something's wrong. | 47:33 | |
| Not everything is right. | 47:37 | |
| Not all that we do is right. | 47:42 | |
| Something is wrong somewhere and we gotta face it. | 47:44 | |
| I can think of parents I've met recently | 47:50 | |
| who say that they're searching for inner peace now, | 47:57 | |
| and they don't have time to raise their children. | 48:00 | |
| It's each man and woman for himself. Something's wrong. | 48:04 | |
| Not everything that we do is right, | 48:09 | |
| and I think about the Bacchae decision, | 48:17 | |
| I wonder about that. | 48:21 | |
| Not all that we do is right. | 48:26 | |
| For the same God | 48:31 | |
| who loves us | 48:36 | |
| is the same God | 48:40 | |
| who at times gets righteously angry with us | 48:44 | |
| and has to straighten us up. | 48:49 | |
| That great God, be reminded. | 48:53 | |
| May Heaven smile upon you, and may God bless you. | 48:59 | |
| Amen. | 49:06 | |
| (pipe organ music) | 49:13 | |
| (choir singing) | 49:57 | |
| Woman | Let us affirm what we believe. | 52:32 |
| We believe in God, who has created, | 52:35 | |
| and is creating, who has come in the truly human Jesus | 52:39 | |
| to reconcile and make new, | 52:44 | |
| who works in us and others via the spirit. | 52:47 | |
| We trust God, who calls us to be the church, | 52:52 | |
| to celebrate life and its fullness, | 52:57 | |
| to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, | 53:00 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 53:07 | |
| our judge and our hope, | 53:11 | |
| in life, in death, in life beyond death, | 53:14 | |
| God is with us. | 53:19 | |
| We are not alone. | 53:21 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 53:23 | |
| May you be seated. | 53:30 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 53:39 | |
| Congregation | And also with you. | 53:41 |
| Woman | Let us pray. | 53:42 |
| Author of the world's joy, | 53:51 | |
| bearer of the world's pain, | 53:55 | |
| at the heart of all our distress, | 54:01 | |
| let unconquerable gladness dwell. | 54:07 | |
| Oh God, You made us in Your own image, | 54:14 | |
| and redeemed us through Jesus Christ. | 54:16 | |
| Look with compassion on the whole human family, | 54:20 | |
| take away the arrogance which infects our hearts, | 54:26 | |
| break down the walls that separate us, | 54:31 | |
| unite us in bonds of love and of work. | 54:36 | |
| Look with compassion, oh God, | 54:47 | |
| upon the people in this land, | 54:49 | |
| who live with injustice, terror, | 54:52 | |
| disease, and death as their constant companions. | 54:56 | |
| Have mercy on us, cleanse our hearts, | 55:01 | |
| quicken our minds and bodies to aid | 55:07 | |
| and to suffer those around us in need of us. | 55:11 | |
| Gracious god, we pray for Your holy church. | 55:21 | |
| Fill it with all truth, truth and all peace. | 55:26 | |
| Where it is corrupt, purify it. | 55:31 | |
| Where it is in error, correct it. | 55:35 | |
| Where it is divided, reunite it, | 55:40 | |
| and where it is right, strengthen it, | 55:45 | |
| and especially, oh God, | 55:50 | |
| we pray for Pope John Paul I. | 55:51 | |
| Grant to him the humility and the courage necessary | 55:57 | |
| to hear Your spirit and live Your word. | 56:04 | |
| Oh God, You have blessed us, | 56:12 | |
| and given us dominion over all the Earth. | 56:17 | |
| Increase our reverence before the mystery of life, | 56:21 | |
| and give us new insight into Your purposes | 56:27 | |
| for each one of us, | 56:30 | |
| and new wisdom, and determination in providing hope | 56:33 | |
| for our future according to Your will. | 56:38 | |
| Author of the world's joy, | 56:47 | |
| bearer of the world's pain, | 56:50 | |
| at the heart of all of our distress, | 56:55 | |
| let unconquerable gladness dwell. | 56:59 | |
| Our Father, who art in heaven, | 57:06 | |
| hallowed be Thy name. | 57:10 | |
| Thy kingdom come, | 57:12 | |
| Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. | 57:14 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread, | 57:20 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses, | 57:23 | |
| as we forgive those who trespassed against us, | 57:26 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 57:30 | |
| but deliver us from evil, | 57:33 | |
| for Thine is the Kingdom, | 57:36 | |
| and the power, and the glory. | 57:38 | |
| Amen. | 57:42 | |
| (pipe organ music) | 57:49 | |
| (choir singing) | 1:02:52 | |
| For our creation and preservation, | 1:04:01 | |
| and all the blessings of this life, | 1:04:06 | |
| and especially, oh God, | 1:04:10 | |
| for the gift of Your son, Jesus, | 1:04:11 | |
| our savior, the Christ. | 1:04:16 | |
| Amen. | 1:04:19 | |
| (pipe organ music) | 1:04:23 | |
| (choir singing) | 1:04:51 | |
| And now may the Lord bless you and keep you. | 1:08:15 | |
| May the Lord make His face shine upon you | 1:08:19 | |
| and be gracious unto you. | 1:08:22 | |
| May the Lord lift up His countenance upon you, | 1:08:25 | |
| and give you peace, but also a knowledge of His reality. | 1:08:29 | |
| Amen. | 1:08:36 | |
| (pipe organ music) | 1:08:40 |
Item Info
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