James T. Cleland - "Recognition and Discovery" (September 25, 1960)

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-	Let us pray.	0:19
	Let the words of my mouth	0:24
	and the meditations of our hearts	0:27
	be acceptable in thy sight.	0:29
	Oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer, amen.	0:35
	It is 15 months since any of you has seen me in this pulpit,	0:51
	over a year has gone by since I stood here	1:01
	to share with you the word of God in a sermon.	1:04
	At that time, following a cue given by St. Paul in Roman 16,	1:13
	I just said, thank you to the folk who for 14 years	1:20
	had held up my hands in this place.	1:28
	The title of the sermon was, "On being beholden."	1:32
	Some of you felt that it was a farewell address,	1:41
	some of you may even have hoped that it was.	1:46
	I myself did know if it was the end of a period	1:51
	or the end of an era, but here I am again.	1:55
	What does one talk about	2:05
	at the beginning of another period?	2:06
	Especially on the first official service	2:11
	of another academic year.	2:15
	I think we should look together	2:20
	at the university service of worship,	2:22
	this interdenominational hour, at 11 o'clock	2:27
	on the Lord's day, when as a university	2:33
	we officially and unitedly worship God.	2:39
	I think I laud with you of what	2:46
	one has a right to expect at and from this service.	2:48
	What can this hour spent together week by week mean to us?	2:56
	A good service of worship has within it	3:05
	for the sake of the worshiper,	3:08
	the element of recognition.	3:11
	Recognition is an awareness	3:19
	that we have met this perceived phenomenon before,	3:22
	that we are not strangers to it,	3:29
	that we expect to continue to be okay with it.	3:32
	Wordsworth knew that.	3:40
	"My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky.	3:43
	So was it, when my life began.	3:49
	So is it, now I am a man.	3:55
	So be it, when I shall grow old."	4:01
	The recognition in his case was a joyous recognition.	4:07
	There is a sense of at homeness, which the experience gives,	4:11
	and also a sense of always expecting to be at home with it.	4:18
	Now, man needs such moments of awareness,	4:24
	awareness of the known,	4:30
	else life could be a terrifying experience.	4:33
	Man cherishes repetition, even routine.	4:38
	Such a longing for his own foresight, for his own chair	4:46
	may even make him glad to return to Durham after a vacation.	4:53
	Now that's hard for some of you to believe, but it's true.	5:01
	Also, haven't we found ourselves overseas	5:09
	or in a strange part of the United States saying,	5:12
	"My, that reminds me of the road up to Asheville,	5:15
	or the Potomac, or even the Methodist flats."	5:20
	I know one of our number,	5:29
	in fact, I heard her remark of a European cathedral,	5:30
	"It's kind of like the Duke Chapel."	5:34
	(congregation laughing)	5:37
	And what happened?	5:42
	That medieval cathedral was domesticated,	5:43
	tagged, accepted.	5:47
	Now move this experience over to the realm of religion.	5:52
	Why is the Roman Catholic immigrant	5:58
	from Portugal or Italy, or Ireland,	6:01
	so quickly at home at corporate worship in United States?	6:10
	Isn't it because the service is couched	6:17
	in the very same Latin	6:20
	he didn't understand in Lisbon, Rome or Dublin?	6:23
	He couldn't translate it for the life of him	6:32
	into Portuguese, Italian, or English,	6:36
	but their is recognition, joyous recognition.	6:40
	Though America is a strange land,	6:46
	he's in the right pew, in the right church.	6:50
	He's content, he's happy.	6:54
	And the New Testament word for "happy"	6:58
	may also to be translated "blessed."	7:03
	So with us here, Duke Chapel	7:09
	with its really magnificent stone and woodwork,	7:13
	it's glorious windows.	7:19
	If one doesn't over concentrate	7:23
	on the the goggle-eyed and splay footed saints,	7:27
	it's glorious organs and its satisfying choir,	7:33
	is hardly the first Methodist church	7:40
	of Hohoka Center or the third Presbyterian Church	7:42
	of Flat River or the eleventh Baptist Church	7:47
	of Slippery Rock.	7:51
	(congregation laughs)	7:53
	It isn't even All Saints or McFlannel Memorial.	7:57
	But there are touches of kinship,	8:02
	hints of a similar genealogical Ecclesiasticism.	8:07
	It's the same Bible we heard back home.	8:15
	Here are the same hymns we sang back home,	8:21
	some of them.	8:25
	There's a collection here too,	8:28
	though Duke calls it, the offering.	8:31
	And with recognition comes satisfaction.	8:35
	Let us probe deeper into the order of worship.	8:42
	If your home church has an estimable order of worship,	8:46
	no matter what your denomination,	8:52
	then I think you sense here the rhythm of a good service,	8:55
	adoration, confession, forgiveness,	9:03
	thanksgiving, intercession, supplication,	9:10
	the ministry of the word, dedication.	9:17
	Of course, there ought to be an affirmation of faith,	9:24
	and the offering is probably out place.	9:29
	But basically the order here attempts to be in line	9:33
	with the liturgies of the reform Protestant tradition,	9:38
	in so far as one interdenominational service can be.	9:43
	Brethren, if you catch this, I speak particularly	9:49
	to those of you who have come new to Duke this year.	9:54
	If you catch this, then you are no longer frightened cats	9:58
	in a strange garret, but sojourner	10:04
	who begin to realize that you can be at home	10:11
	in the university chapel,	10:17
	as worshipers of the same God	10:20
	whom you may have thought you're left behind	10:23
	in South Carolina or New Jersey.	10:27
	It was to give you the sense of recognition	10:31
	that the first hymn was chosen,	10:34
	"Faith of our fathers, living still,	10:38
	oh how our hearts beat high with joy	10:43
	whene'er we hear that glorious word."	10:48
	It's no strange gospel which is celebrated here.	10:55
	The service is rooted and grounded in the good news of God,	11:02
	as delivered in the Old and New Testament,	11:10
	as transmitted by the holy Catholic Church,	11:14
	as amended by the Protestant Reformation.	11:19
	Therefore we echo the 122nd Psalm here,	11:24
	"I was glad when they said unto me,	11:29
	let us go into the house of the Lord."	11:33
	I wish we could have sung that Psalm	11:37
	in the metrical version this morning,	11:39
	"I joyed when to the house of God	11:43
	Go up, they said to me,	11:46
	Jerusalem, within thy gates	11:49
	our feet shall standing be.	11:51
	Now, for my friends' and brethren's sake,	11:55
	peace be in the I'll say,	11:59
	and for the house of God our Lord	12:03
	I'll seek thy good alway."	12:07
	If this is a valid service, then our first response to it	12:14
	should be the thrill of recognition.	12:20
	Yet, this is only half the story, it is an important half.	12:28
	Sunday by Sunday, there should be both in the service	12:37
	and in our response to the service,	12:42
	the happy element of recognition.	12:45
	But there is another component,	12:51
	one which should be sensed regularly,	12:54
	though not necessarily every Lord's day.	12:59
	It's not contradictory to what has already been said,	13:04
	it's complimentary, supplementary.	13:09
	It may be denoted by the use of the noun, "discovery."	13:14
	Now, this does not so much mean	13:22
	that something brand new has been added for our unearthing,	13:24
	but for some of us, something does sometimes	13:33
	bob up for a first time unexpectedly.	13:42
	It swims into our kin like a new planet.	13:49
	And we stare at each other with a wild surmise,	13:56
	silent upon a pew in the Duke Chapel.	14:01
	Last week, the chaplain to the university	14:06
	talked to those of us who are freshmen	14:09
	about growing up to maturity,	14:13
	growing up to maturity in the realm of the spirit	14:17
	as well as in the kingdom of the mind.	14:20
	Any one of us is going to be a split personality,	14:26
	headed for all kinds of awkwardness.	14:32
	If we mature, really mature intellectually	14:37
	and remain spiritually in swaddling clothes or rompers.	14:44
	From one aspect, the long history of the church	14:52
	has been a succession of attempts	14:57
	to make folk less infantile	15:01
	in the areas of faith and love, and to develop them	15:06
	as grown up sons of and daughters of God.	15:11
	That was the successive task of St. John	15:18
	in the new Testament, St. Augustine,	15:23
	St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin, Paul Tilley.	15:29
	Now such may cause the church to have growing pain.	15:42
	They hurt.	15:53
	Think of this again in the method	15:56
	of this service of worship.	15:59
	There are minor matters here which will annoy us	16:04
	like so many pin pricks unless we cultivate	16:08
	two of the marks of maturity, objectivity and humor.	16:14
	The order of our worship may well be too organized,	16:25
	too stiff.	16:31
	For those of us who have been used	16:34
	to our liturgical free-for-all Sunday by Sunday,	16:35
	it's not going to be easy for some of us to sit	16:44
	through the choir's rendition of some strange anthem.	16:46
	If we would prefer to be crooning for ourselves,	16:53
	I'm in love with the lover of my soul,	16:57
	like some "Spiritually Arrested" Elvis Presley.	17:01
	(congregation laughs)	17:07
	It's going to be quite a piece of detective work	17:10
	for more than a few among us to figure out	17:13
	some of the organ music.	17:16
	I can hear the humble listener murmuring,	17:20
	"It must be good music.	17:24
	I don't understand it."	17:27
	Others will enter into a completely	17:31
	new liturgical experience when they discover	17:34
	that read prayers can be prayed, rather than merely recited.	17:39
	But let me promise you	17:52
	that if you'll give the service a fair trial,	17:54
	that you are perhaps better,	17:59
	many of you will find it an enlarging,	18:02
	an enriching, a growing up encounter.	18:07
	You'll not decide whether sorrowful shrug of the shoulders,	18:15
	I suppose it must be that the old order changes,	18:21
	yielding place to new.	18:25
	It's not that new.	18:29
	Rather you'll begin to appreciate Tenison's next lines.	18:31
	"God fulfills himself in many ways,	18:37
	less one good custom should corrupt the world."	18:45
	That doesn't mean you'll all accept it, some won't.	18:54
	They'll go downtown to a church	19:00
	more like the one at home.	19:03
	But if you'll stay with us, stay with us,	19:06
	not necessarily in agreement, but in sympathy,	19:10
	you may find yourself coming of age	19:15
	in the realm of worship here.	19:18
	Yet, let me be honest with you.	19:24
	Some things may be said and done here	19:30
	which may really shock you.	19:35
	I think that's one truth lying,	19:39
	ready for exposition in the passage that was read	19:42
	as the scripture lesson, let's look at it together.	19:47
	Jesus is at a crisis moment in his ministry.	19:52
	What does public opinion say about him?	19:59
	He asks the disciples,	20:05
	"Who are men saying that I really am?"	20:08
	The disciples' answer,	20:14
	"Another prophet, Elijah come back to earth	20:17
	to prepare the way for the Messiah,	20:25
	a second John the Baptist."	20:29
	Now, notice what's common to these answers,	20:33
	they were the outcome of recognition.	20:38
	They were the kind of answer	20:45
	which might have been expected,	20:47
	considering the background and the foreground	20:49
	of the disciples.	20:52
	As a matter of fact, they were the very answers	20:53
	given to Herod Antipas, the local headman,	20:57
	when he asked who Jesus was.	21:02
	This is this stage of recognition.	21:08
	And then Jesus asked the 12, "What do you think about me?"	21:14
	And Peter answered in a moment of discovery,	21:24
	"You're the Messiah."	21:30
	I shall never forget how Professor Pitre	21:34
	in the Divinity School Meditation	21:38
	paraphrased Jesus answer to Peter,	21:41
	"Peter, you of all people	21:45
	never thought that up for yourself."	21:50
	That took revelation.	21:53
	Messiah was a new idea when applied	21:59
	to a contemporary person,	22:05
	no one had been called Messiah,	22:09
	certainly since about 150 BC and before that,	22:13
	oh, it's back at the time of the Rubber Bowl,	22:18
	in the 6th century BC, this is new.	22:20
	Now, one might wish that the story finished there,	22:26
	but it didn't.	22:31
	Jesus began to explain what he thought	22:34
	the content of Messiah was, repudiation, suffering, death.	22:38
	That was too much for Peter.	22:50
	He drew Jesus to one side	22:54
	and suggested that he stopped talking like that.	22:56
	Now did Jesus answer, "Okay. Peter (laughs)	22:59
	let's have a private bull session	23:02
	on the concept of Messiah."	23:05
	Oh no. (laughs)	23:07
	In a voice that all the other disciples could hear,	23:10
	he said to Peter, "Out of my way, Satan."	23:14
	Now the Greek imperative there	23:23
	is the same word Jesus used to the devil	23:26
	in the wilderness temptation, "Out of my way Satan."	23:31
	You will probably probably not be wrong to assume	23:44
	that Peter was shocked.	23:47
	But with discovery, there may very well come shock.	23:53
	The effect of discovery is not necessarily	24:02
	immediate peace of mind.	24:05
	Now, you may be of offended, scandalized,	24:08
	repelled, disgusted, by what you hear in this chapel.	24:12
	The prayers may cause it.	24:20
	In a bidding prayer,	24:24
	I once gave the stage direction from over the lectum.	24:26
	Let us pray for the holy Catholic Church,	24:30
	and a worshiper was there upon had to mutter,	24:35
	"My God. He's praying for the Roman Catholic."	24:38
	Well, I was, and I wasn't.	24:43
	The scripture lesson may cause it.	24:48
	You may be so devoted to the King James Version,	24:52
	which by the way is the King James,	24:56
	and not the Saint James Version.	24:58
	You study the life of that	25:03
	James 6th of Scotland and 1st of England,	25:04
	and you won't accuse him of being a saint,	25:07
	except with a small S in the Pauline sense.	25:10
	But you may be so devoted to the king James Version	25:15
	that rebel against the Revised Standard Version,	25:18
	the Moffitt Translation, and JB Phillips rendition	25:22
	into modern English.	25:26
	Just think, that may be because you prefer	25:31
	the beauty of obscurity to the rebuff of clarity.	25:36
	A hymn may cause it, especially if the choir director	25:46
	puts words you love to a melody you don't know.	25:51
	Right words, wrong tune.	25:56
	And yet the tune he chooses maybe cleaner,	25:59
	crisper, stronger, than the well known air.	26:04
	The sermon may cause it,	26:13
	it was something of a shock to at least one listener	26:17
	last spring when I wasn't here,	26:24
	so don't blame me, to discover a Palm Sunday sermon reading	26:27
	leading straight into the racial fracas	26:35
	at Vanderbilt University.	26:39
	Our Lord himself may cause it,	26:47
	as a careful scholar with devout exo Jesus	26:51
	shatters our traditional notions	26:56
	of what Jesus actually said.	26:59
	Indeed, while Jesus was on earth,	27:02
	he was full of surprising moments.	27:07
	He wouldn't have been crucified	27:13
	if he hadn't been a shocking person.	27:15
	And the Holy Spirit, which is his continuing activity	27:20
	in the world today may have more surprises	27:27
	in store right here.	27:34
	It was to stress that fact	27:40
	that the second hymn was chosen this morning,	27:42
	especially those words	27:46
	"New occasions teach new duties.	27:50
	Time makes ancient good uncouth.	27:56
	They must upwards still and onward	28:04
	who would keep abreast of truth."	28:09
	If this is a valid service	28:13
	our second response to it should be the thrill of discovery.	28:14
	Brethren it is our hope that the university service	28:22
	of worship is one worthy of God	28:26
	who is truth and beauty, as well as love.	28:33
	And one worthy of ourselves	28:40
	in the stretching process of an academic fellowship.	28:44
	It is our prayer that Sunday by Sunday,	28:51
	we shall be recalled to what we quickly recognize	28:54
	and be led on to the painful joy of discovery.	28:59
	The thrill of recognition,	29:07
	the thrill of discovery, that is the twin intent	29:11
	and the double effect of a good service, of worship.	29:18
	Let us pray.	29:27
	Almighty and eternal God,	29:34
	the beginning and the end of all our worship,	29:38
	deliver us from scorn of that which is old	29:42
	and from fear of that which is new.	29:45
	Save us also from veneration of that which is old	29:50
	and from contempt of that which is new,	29:54
	that our worship may glorify thee,	29:58
	as the framer of tradition and the author of truth,	30:02
	world without him,	30:07
	and may the blessing of the Lord come upon you abundantly	30:10
	may it keep you strong and tranquil	30:14
	in the truth of his promises,	30:17
	through Jesus Christ our Lord.	30:19
	♪ Amen ♪	30:27
	♪ Amen ♪	30:37

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Recognition and Discovery" (September 25, 1960)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49023h6g

Date:

September 25, 1960

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0117
ref5435_d82
uachapelsermaud
duke:628666
dcrau002139
ark:/87924/r49023h6g
84cbb4cc-f080-4728-822f-146728948169

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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James T. Cleland - "Recognition and Discovery" (September 25, 1960)

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1. James T. Cleland - "Recognition and Discovery" (September 25, 1960)

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