James T. Cleland - "Spring Practice" (March 18, 1962)
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | The months of the year after March | 0:53 |
and be bogged down on the days of the week after Wednesday | 0:58 | |
with the blessed exception of Saturday. | 1:03 | |
He usually carried a morning paper around with him | 1:09 | |
to let him know just where he was on the calendar, | 1:13 | |
and when he was in it. | 1:18 | |
Otherwise, he was quite intelligent. | 1:23 | |
He graduated from that prep school | 1:27 | |
and from one of the Ivy League colleges. | 1:29 | |
Now, how are we, chronologically? | 1:34 | |
What day and date is this? | 1:41 | |
Sunday, March 18. | 1:47 | |
Good. | 1:52 | |
But what day is it in the church year, | 1:54 | |
on the ecclesiastical calendar? | 2:00 | |
Now, this should be no problem for those of you | 2:04 | |
who are Episcopalians or Lutherans. | 2:07 | |
It is the second Sunday in Lent, | 2:12 | |
and it is Lent that we shall all think about together | 2:17 | |
in this sermon, | 2:21 | |
that is, ask three questions, | 2:23 | |
and try to answer them. | 2:26 | |
The first simple query is obviously, what is Lent? | 2:30 | |
Lent is a period in the Christian year. | 2:38 | |
It consists of the 40 days, | 2:44 | |
excluding Sundays, | 2:49 | |
from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday, | 2:52 | |
the day before Easter. | 2:58 | |
Is that clear? | 3:01 | |
If we count back from Easter Sunday, | 3:04 | |
40 days, excluding all the Sundays, | 3:08 | |
then we have the period which is known as the Lenten season. | 3:12 | |
40 is a biblical holy number. | 3:19 | |
According to one account of the flood, | 3:25 | |
it rained for 40 days. | 3:27 | |
The children of Israel wandered 40 years in the wilderness. | 3:31 | |
Our Lord was desert after his baptism 40 days. | 3:37 | |
40 is a biblical holy number for a long time, | 3:44 | |
and believe me, if we keep Lent, | 3:51 | |
we shall find 40 days a long time, too, | 3:56 | |
whatever may be the status of our holiness. | 4:02 | |
But you ask me, why do we ignore the Sundays? | 4:07 | |
Isn't lent really 46 days long? | 4:11 | |
If we are anxious to keep the only number 40, | 4:17 | |
why didn't we begin Lent on the Tuesday after Ash Wednesday, | 4:22 | |
which would have given us six more days of Mardi Gras? | 4:28 | |
Well, let me try to answer. | 4:35 | |
In the church's long history, | 4:39 | |
Lent changed its emphasis | 4:42 | |
from one of teaching the fundamentals of the faith | 4:46 | |
in preparation for the baptism of new members on Easter Eve, | 4:52 | |
changed from that to a season of mourning for sin. | 4:59 | |
Now, this is understandable. | 5:07 | |
After all, Easter is preceded by Holy Week, | 5:09 | |
and Holy Week concentrates our thinking | 5:16 | |
on the rejection of our Lord, | 5:20 | |
on his trial, | 5:24 | |
his sufferings, | 5:26 | |
his death. | 5:28 | |
Therefore, this period of preparation was no festival. | 5:31 | |
It was rather a fast, | 5:36 | |
because sorrow, not joy was at the heart of it. | 5:39 | |
But one never fasts on Sunday, | 5:49 | |
not even during Lent. | 5:55 | |
Why? | 5:57 | |
Because Sunday is the Lord's Day, | 5:59 | |
the day when, every week, | 6:03 | |
we remember that he was raised from the dead. | 6:05 | |
The way to keep the Lord's Day, | 6:11 | |
it is as the choir kept it this morning | 6:14 | |
with a shout of hallelujah, | 6:16 | |
victory. | 6:19 | |
And so the Sundays, the little Easters, | 6:22 | |
are excluded from the Lenten fast. | 6:27 | |
The 40 days before Easter | 6:31 | |
are necessarily stretched chronologically to 46, | 6:34 | |
with time out every now and again | 6:40 | |
for a foretaste of the Easter joy. | 6:43 | |
Well, so much for the first question. | 6:48 | |
You say, that may be interesting, | 6:54 | |
but are you suggesting that we observe Lent? | 6:58 | |
Now, that question is sometimes asked | 7:04 | |
with a certain amount of belligerency | 7:06 | |
by Low Church Methodists, | 7:09 | |
died-in-the-wool Presbyterians, | 7:12 | |
and biblical Baptists. | 7:15 | |
Now, there isn't much point to offering such folk an answer | 7:20 | |
cloaked in the mists of ecclesiastical tradition | 7:26 | |
or obscured by the fogs of religious controversy. | 7:29 | |
That would evoke nothing but more belligerency, | 7:35 | |
so let's go at it in this way. | 7:39 | |
One evening, | 7:43 | |
I was sitting with one of the football coaches at Duke, | 7:44 | |
a man of quiet reserve and few words, | 7:48 | |
and I asked him, | 7:54 | |
"What are you trying to do in spring practice?" | 7:56 | |
And the answered, "Oh, we're just getting ready." | 8:01 | |
I queried, "Ready for what?" | 8:07 | |
He replied, "Getting ready for the regular season | 8:11 | |
in the fall." | 8:16 | |
And like Archimedes, I said to myself, "Eureka! | 8:20 | |
I've got it!" | 8:27 | |
There's a sermon for Lent. | 8:29 | |
When I told our coach, Mr. Murray, | 8:35 | |
that I was going to write the sermon, | 8:37 | |
he asked me, "How many days are in Lent?" | 8:39 | |
I told him there were 40, and he commented, | 8:42 | |
"You're more fortunate in the church than we are. | 8:46 | |
The Atlantic Coast Conference allows us only 20." | 8:51 | |
Now, in preparation, | 8:57 | |
I did some research in the pigskin commentaries. | 8:58 | |
Thanks to one of the assistant coaches here, | 9:03 | |
I checked books on how to play football | 9:05 | |
by experts of the caliber of Bobby Dodd of Georgia Tech, | 9:09 | |
and Bernie Bierman, late of Minnesota. | 9:14 | |
I even read part of a volume | 9:18 | |
by that veteran coach Dana X. Bible, | 9:20 | |
who seemed to have the kind of name | 9:25 | |
which might help a man with a sermon. | 9:27 | |
I read all they had to say under spring training, | 9:33 | |
and found that they agreed on two major points. | 9:38 | |
First, | 9:42 | |
the foundation of a successful football team | 9:44 | |
is usually laid in spring practice. | 9:50 | |
Second, | 9:55 | |
spring training should be the time | 9:57 | |
when the fundamentals are stressed to the nth degree. | 10:00 | |
Now, let us play with this analogy. | 10:08 | |
Spring practice. | 10:12 | |
We are just getting ready. | 10:15 | |
That's what Lent is. | 10:19 | |
That is what Lent is. | 10:22 | |
What's the derivation of Lent? | 10:26 | |
It comes from the Old English lencten, | 10:29 | |
which just means spring. | 10:34 | |
The season is the spring season. | 10:38 | |
The Lenten season is spring practice. | 10:42 | |
We're just getting ready, ready for what? | 10:46 | |
Partly for Holy Week. | 10:49 | |
More particularly, for Good Friday, | 10:53 | |
but primarily for Easter, | 10:56 | |
the real birthday of our religion. | 11:00 | |
The church, in its wisdom, | 11:05 | |
realized that we should not approach its great moments | 11:07 | |
unprepared in spirit. | 11:12 | |
Therefore, before the birth of Christ, | 11:16 | |
it sets aside four weeks to prepare us for his coming, | 11:18 | |
the four Sundays in Advent, | 11:25 | |
and before the mystery of the Resurrection, | 11:29 | |
when joy dispelled gloom, | 11:33 | |
and sorrow and sighing were done away, | 11:36 | |
it sets aside 40 weekdays and six Sundays | 11:40 | |
to prepare us for Easter. | 11:46 | |
Much more time seems to be given to the preparation | 11:51 | |
for the high days | 11:55 | |
than to the festival itself. | 11:57 | |
And yet this is not entirely so. | 12:00 | |
The Christmas season really extends for 12 days | 12:03 | |
beyond December 25th, | 12:11 | |
as the popular song "The 12 Days of Christmas" remembers. | 12:14 | |
Moreover, there are 40 or 50 days in Eastertide | 12:19 | |
following Easter Sunday. | 12:26 | |
That's something which the churches | 12:28 | |
that are just beginning to be come conscious | 12:31 | |
of the Christian year | 12:34 | |
have not really yet fully grasped, | 12:36 | |
or not as yet. | 12:40 | |
It takes time for us | 12:42 | |
to absorb the joy of Christmas and Easter, | 12:45 | |
just as it takes time to make ourselves ready | 12:53 | |
for the amazing revelation of God | 12:58 | |
in the Incarnation and in the Resurrection. | 13:01 | |
The Lenten season, then, is a period of preparation. | 13:06 | |
A letter writer in the New Testament, | 13:14 | |
as we heard in this morning's lesson, | 13:18 | |
in giving some advice to his young friend, Timothy, | 13:22 | |
who was having trouble acting as a bishop, | 13:28 | |
or perhaps better as a district superintendent, | 13:32 | |
wrote, "Train for the religious life." | 13:36 | |
The King James Version renders it, | 13:43 | |
"Exercise thyself rather unto godliness," | 13:45 | |
which may be beautiful, but is decidedly obscure. | 13:50 | |
But the Dr. Moffitt translation, | 13:54 | |
"Train for the religious life." | 13:56 | |
The writer of the letter to Timothy | 14:01 | |
took his letter from physical training. | 14:03 | |
In fact, he goes on to mention bodily exercise. | 14:06 | |
Now, this is in line with other New Testament metaphors. | 14:11 | |
Listen to Paul, | 14:16 | |
speaking as a boxer. | 14:19 | |
"I do not plant my blows upon the empty air." | 14:21 | |
He's neither a shadow boxer, nor a crude fighter. | 14:28 | |
He lands his punches, as his enemies knew, | 14:33 | |
and just before this pugilistic reference, | 14:39 | |
Paul has used a track analogy. | 14:42 | |
"I run without swerving." | 14:45 | |
He knows he must go into training for the religious life. | 14:51 | |
He writes, "I maul and master my body." | 14:54 | |
Maybe he wrote his own epitaph. | 15:00 | |
"I have fought the good fight. | 15:03 | |
I have finished the race." | 15:06 | |
That's why "Fight the Good Fight" is a sound Lenten hymn. | 15:10 | |
There's a serious intentional discipline | 15:16 | |
to the religious life. | 15:22 | |
A Christian must exercise his spirit | 15:25 | |
to keep it in good condition. | 15:28 | |
He can no more expect | 15:32 | |
to win the joys of spiritual blessedness | 15:34 | |
without spiritual discipline, | 15:37 | |
than an athlete who refuses to train | 15:40 | |
can expect to win with any degree of consistency. | 15:44 | |
A careful observance of the Lenten season | 15:51 | |
is as important for the complete entrance of the spirit | 15:55 | |
into the blessedness of Easter | 15:59 | |
as spring practice is | 16:02 | |
for a football team's success in the fall. | 16:04 | |
So if you ask me, "Why should I observe Lent?" | 16:09 | |
My answer is that it will make Easter | 16:14 | |
more than a dress parade | 16:17 | |
or a spasmodic resurgence of church attendance. | 16:21 | |
It will make it, well, to some extent, | 16:26 | |
a prepared for, | 16:31 | |
understood, | 16:34 | |
appreciated, | 16:36 | |
and therefore joyously celebrated festival | 16:39 | |
of the triumph of God | 16:45 | |
when defeat seemed to be an actuality. | 16:48 | |
We shall be in good condition to welcome it | 16:52 | |
and its good tidings. | 16:56 | |
For in the days before, | 16:58 | |
we shall have intentionally and systematically | 17:00 | |
oriented ourselves to the comprehension | 17:04 | |
of Good Friday and Easter, | 17:06 | |
with their world-shattering events. | 17:09 | |
We shall be worshipers who have added to our faith knowledge | 17:13 | |
and are therefore twice blessed. | 17:22 | |
Now, you have an inevitable question | 17:28 | |
in response to all this. | 17:31 | |
All right, | 17:33 | |
but how? | 17:36 | |
How should I observe Lent? | 17:38 | |
Since Lent has been historically linked with fasting | 17:45 | |
and refraining from various practices | 17:49 | |
legitimately indulged in it other times of the year, | 17:52 | |
it's usually connected with giving up, | 17:57 | |
for example, candy, smoking, playing cards, movies, dancing. | 18:01 | |
If you have given any of these up, | 18:12 | |
just remember, you don't have to give them up on Sunday. | 18:14 | |
You're all right. | 18:17 | |
(congregants laughing) | 18:19 | |
It is refraining from a appreciated joys, | 18:26 | |
ad majorem gloria Dei, | 18:31 | |
to the greater glory of God. | 18:34 | |
Will you please note this? | 18:37 | |
It's not the giving up of sins, | 18:40 | |
not even little, minor sins. | 18:44 | |
These, however tiny, are never valid for the Christian, | 18:48 | |
never, ever. | 18:53 | |
Lent is a temporary giving up of what is quite legitimate | 18:56 | |
as a symbol of our primary dedication to God. | 19:02 | |
Now, I wouldn't deny the value of this kind of training. | 19:06 | |
It has both historical precedent and personal satisfaction | 19:12 | |
to prove its usefulness. | 19:18 | |
But this approach alone is too negative. | 19:21 | |
Let us turn to a more positive method of observance. | 19:27 | |
Let us do something for God and his Christ | 19:33 | |
that is more than we are in the habit of doing. | 19:38 | |
Do you remember what the football coaches wrote? | 19:44 | |
Spring training should be the time | 19:46 | |
when the fundamentals are stressed to the nth degree. | 19:49 | |
Now, what are some of these fundamentals for the Christian? | 19:57 | |
Well, we are students. | 20:02 | |
All right, then why not add to our knowledge | 20:04 | |
of the Christian faith? | 20:09 | |
Have we ever read the Gospels slowly, | 20:12 | |
systematically, | 20:18 | |
with time out for reflection? | 20:22 | |
Have we ever read a life of Jesus | 20:29 | |
unless it were a prescribed text in New Testament 103 | 20:33 | |
or whatever the number of the course is. | 20:39 | |
There are all kinds of lives of Jesus, | 20:43 | |
written by Jews | 20:46 | |
and by historians, | 20:49 | |
by economists, | 20:52 | |
and by dramatists, | 20:54 | |
by followers of Bach, | 20:57 | |
and disciples of Bookman. | 20:59 | |
Have we ever thought of the influence that played on Jesus | 21:05 | |
in the unknown years | 21:10 | |
between the time of his birth in Bethlehem | 21:11 | |
and his baptism by John? | 21:16 | |
30 years. | 21:19 | |
Something must have happened to him. | 21:21 | |
He must have learned something in that time | 21:25 | |
to be able to preach the way he did | 21:29 | |
when he appeared after his baptism. | 21:31 | |
We can find, | 21:36 | |
we can even find the books he read during those 30 years. | 21:40 | |
Now, there are people in this faculty | 21:49 | |
who will be glad to recommend lives of Jesus to you. | 21:51 | |
Devote just 15 to 20 minutes a day | 21:56 | |
to increasing your knowledge of this strange Jew, | 22:01 | |
who men call the God-Man. | 22:11 | |
We are Christians. | 22:18 | |
All right. | 22:19 | |
Then why not add to our service | 22:22 | |
by sharing ourselves with our neighbors, | 22:24 | |
especially those who need someone to lean upon. | 22:28 | |
Ask the chaplains about places | 22:34 | |
where you can give a cup of cold water | 22:36 | |
or a pat on the back, | 22:39 | |
hospital wards, | 22:42 | |
shut-ins, | 22:44 | |
youngsters who need coaching. | 22:46 | |
There's a tale of someone who said to Jesus, | 22:50 | |
"I'd like to know you better." | 22:53 | |
Do you know how Jesus answered? | 22:57 | |
"If you would know me, | 23:00 | |
go work in my vineyard." | 23:04 | |
We are sinners. | 23:11 | |
And why not add to our worship? | 23:15 | |
There will be special services on this campus during Lent, | 23:18 | |
extra chances to be guests at the table of the Lord. | 23:22 | |
But let us think just now of our private prayer. | 23:28 | |
Do we he find it difficult to pray? | 23:33 | |
Each of us by himself, herself alone in a room? | 23:38 | |
A student at Oxford did. | 23:47 | |
He told his father about it. | 23:51 | |
His father was Professor of Divinity at Edinburgh University | 23:55 | |
and he began to write prayers for his son | 24:02 | |
every now and again, | 24:06 | |
and forwarded to him through the four years. | 24:09 | |
The son saved them, | 24:16 | |
and after his four years at Oxford, | 24:18 | |
persuaded his father to publish the best of them | 24:22 | |
for other students who were away from home at college, | 24:26 | |
31 for the morning, 31 for the evening, | 24:33 | |
and a special morning and evening prayer for the Lord's Day. | 24:39 | |
Almost half a million copies | 24:46 | |
of that book of prayers have been sold. | 24:49 | |
Some of you know it, many of you know it. | 24:55 | |
It's John Bailey's "A Diary of Private Prayer." | 24:57 | |
You can buy it for $1.50, hardback. | 25:03 | |
It speaks our language. | 25:08 | |
Listen to it. | 25:10 | |
Here's part of an evening prayer. | 25:13 | |
Especially do I commend to thy holy keeping | 25:15 | |
all who tonight are far from home and friends. | 25:20 | |
Hmm! | 25:30 | |
Students from overseas on this campus. | 25:31 | |
All who tonight must lie down hungry or cold. | 25:36 | |
What proportion of the world's population | 25:43 | |
goes to bed hungry? | 25:45 | |
It's at least one-third. | 25:48 | |
All who suffer pain in our hospitals. | 25:53 | |
All who are kept awake by anxiety or suspense. | 26:01 | |
Huh! | 26:06 | |
Just before exams, huh? | 26:08 | |
Coffee, Benzedrine. | 26:10 | |
All who are facing danger. | 26:16 | |
There on the dew line up there in Greenland. | 26:20 | |
All who must toil or keep watch while others sleep. | 26:25 | |
Doctors, nurses, policemen. | 26:32 | |
Grant to them all, I pray, such a sense of thy presence | 26:39 | |
as they turn their loneliness into comfort | 26:43 | |
and their troubles into peace. | 26:47 | |
Now, notice the language is what we expect in prayer, | 26:49 | |
dignified yet understandable, liturgical yet not stilted, | 26:53 | |
but the thoughts penetrate our hearts | 26:59 | |
if we meditate on them line by line. | 27:02 | |
Now, let me read another passage from an evening prayer, | 27:06 | |
pausing at the end of each line. | 27:09 | |
Can you name a person who is pictured in each line? | 27:14 | |
Yet I would not think only of myself | 27:22 | |
or pray only for myself, | 27:25 | |
as now I seek thy presence. | 27:27 | |
I would remember before thee | 27:29 | |
all my human brothers and sisters who need thine help. | 27:31 | |
Especially tonight, | 27:36 | |
I think of those who are faced by great temptations. | 27:37 | |
Can you name him? | 27:45 | |
Her? | 27:48 | |
Of those who are faced by tasks too great for their powers. | 27:50 | |
Should my own name be inscribed there? | 27:58 | |
Of those who stay and in any valley of decision. | 28:03 | |
About my job, my life? | 28:10 | |
Of those who are suffering the consequences | 28:14 | |
of misdeeds long ago repented of. | 28:18 | |
Now, there's a bitter thought. | 28:23 | |
Of those who are suffering the consequences | 28:25 | |
of misdeeds long ago repented of. | 28:28 | |
Of those who by reason of their very surroundings | 28:33 | |
have never had a fair chance in life. | 28:35 | |
Huh! | 28:39 | |
It's easy to think of a lot of names there. | 28:39 | |
Of all family circles broken by death. | 28:43 | |
Of all missionaries of the kingdom of heaven | 28:49 | |
in far-away corners of the earth. | 28:51 | |
Of those who lift high the lamp of truth in lonely places. | 28:54 | |
Right in our own state. | 28:59 | |
Study, service, prayer. | 29:05 | |
These are three fundamentals in getting ready for Easter. | 29:10 | |
Train for the religious life. | 29:16 | |
These words are as true for us as they were for Timothy. | 29:19 | |
Do many of you recall the movie | 29:26 | |
made during the war in Britain, | 29:28 | |
and entitled "In Which We Serve." | 29:30 | |
It was about the life and the death of a destroyer. | 29:35 | |
And do you remember the speech | 29:41 | |
at the commissioning of the destroyer? | 29:41 | |
Well, the commander says to his crew, | 29:46 | |
"This will be a disciplined ship, | 29:49 | |
and a happy ship. | 29:54 | |
In order to be a happy ship, | 29:57 | |
it will be a disciplined ship." | 30:01 | |
The Christian word for happiness is blessedness. | 30:07 | |
A happy Christian, a blessed Christian | 30:12 | |
is a disciplined Christian. | 30:16 | |
He's one who comes to Easter disciplined in mind and spirit, | 30:18 | |
because he has accompanied the Christ in study, | 30:24 | |
in service, in prayer, | 30:29 | |
from Galilee to Judea, | 30:31 | |
across the Jordan, | 30:34 | |
through Jericho, | 30:37 | |
from the dinner table of Zacchaeus | 30:39 | |
to a home on the outskirts of Jerusalem | 30:42 | |
where lived a man and these two sisters, | 30:45 | |
Lazarus, Martha, and Mary. | 30:49 | |
He has thrilled at the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, | 30:54 | |
and listened to the disputes in the temple courts | 30:58 | |
where Jesus won every encounter, | 31:02 | |
and yet lost the support of his listeners. | 31:06 | |
He has quietly participated in the Last Supper, | 31:11 | |
and in shame, borne witness to the betrayal. | 31:16 | |
He has stood before Pilate, | 31:22 | |
then gazed at three crosses against the sky, | 31:26 | |
and watched the world grow black. | 31:33 | |
That man is ready for Easter. | 31:38 | |
He has trained, prepared himself for it, | 31:42 | |
for something quite unique happened to him. | 31:47 | |
He didn't see all that in memory alone. | 31:50 | |
He experienced it within his own soul. | 31:55 | |
Nazareth and Jericho, | 32:00 | |
Bethany and Jerusalem, | 32:03 | |
an upper room, | 32:07 | |
a Roman court, | 32:09 | |
and a wooden cross | 32:12 | |
are waystations in the human heart, | 32:16 | |
and thanks be to God, | 32:22 | |
so is Easter. | 32:26 | |
Amen. | 32:32 | |
Let us pray. | 32:34 | |
Almighty God, who through thy church | 32:42 | |
hast taught us the value of seasons of preparation, | 32:45 | |
help us to keep Lent | 32:50 | |
as a period of proper training, | 32:53 | |
that we may make ourselves ready | 32:57 | |
for Good Friday and Easter Morning, | 32:59 | |
to the glory of thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, | 33:03 | |
and may the blessing of the Lord come upon you abundantly. | 33:08 | |
May it keep you strong and tranquil | 33:14 | |
in the truth of his promises, | 33:17 | |
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. | 33:20 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund