James T. Cleland - "Approaching Lent" (February 28, 1965)

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	(bright music)	0:03
-	Let us pray.	0:20
	Let the words of my mouth and the meditations	0:23
	of our hearts be acceptable in thy sight.	0:27
	Oh Lord our strength	0:33
	and our Redeemer, Amen.	0:35
	Some days ago there crossed my desk,	0:48
	a folder entitled Mardi Gras, 1965.	0:52
	Published by a group of our students with the interesting	1:01
	and somewhat inaccurate name,	1:05
	''The Steering Committee of University Weekends''.	1:09
	Now this folder gave me pause,	1:16
	do not jump to the conclusion	1:20
	that I am against extra curricular revelry.	1:23
	I am for it.	1:29
	I'm in favor of section parties and open houses	1:32
	and even dancing in the streets, whether permitting.	1:37
	My attitude is summed up in four lines of verse,	1:43
	which I thought were written by a Scott,	1:47
	but which were actually penned by a South Carolinian	1:52
	John Bennett by name.	1:57
	Here they are.	1:59
	''We are all but fellow travelers along life's weary way.	2:02
	If any man can play the pipes in God's name, let him play.''	2:09
	Good, good.	2:17
	No, it's not the musical shenanigans	2:21
	that which gave me pause,	2:23
	It was the timing of the event.	2:26
	It was described as a Mardi Gras Jollification	2:31
	but it was dated February 19 and 20.	2:36
	Now Mardi Gras in actual fact	2:42
	is next Tuesday, March the 2nd.	2:45
	Was the steering committee	2:52
	of university weekends confused	2:54
	or careless ,or uninformed.	2:58
	Therefore it has seemed good to me to look with you	3:04
	at Mardi Gras and Pre-Lent and Lent.	3:08
	To discover if they mean or should mean anything to us	3:15
	at this time of the year.	3:20
	For those of us who are liturgically erudite	3:23
	or ecclesiastically pedantic.	3:28
	Today is Quinquagesima,	3:32
	the Sunday preceding the beginning of Lent.	3:36
	It is appropriate then for us to see what Pre-Lent	3:42
	and Lent have meant in the past,	3:46
	in order to discover if they have anything to say to us	3:49
	about how we should behave	3:53
	in these two Pre-Easter periods in 1965.	3:56
	Now this coming Wednesday is Ash Wednesday.	4:04
	The first day of the long Lenten Fast.	4:09
	The three days before Ash Wednesday	4:14
	are known in England as Shrovetide.	4:18
	Shrove is derived from the Anglo-Saxon Scriven,	4:23
	which means to Shrive	4:28
	that is to make confession	4:31
	or to hear confession and to grant absolution.	4:35
	Now this period preceding the 40 days of Lent	4:43
	was formerly according to a Catholic dictionary,	4:47
	a period particularly set for going to confession	4:51
	and also for lively recreation	4:57
	for going to confession	5:02
	and also for lively recreation.	5:04
	The order of activity should I think be reversed.	5:09
	It was a time for lively activity	5:14
	and therefore for the ensuing journey to confession.	5:18
	If the long Lenten period were to be one of penitence,	5:25
	prayer and fasting,	5:30
	then one used Shrovetide	5:33
	to make sure he had done something	5:37
	necessitating penance, prayer and fasting.	5:40
	One danced for hours on end	5:47
	so as to make the consequent refraining	5:51
	from dancing during Lent	5:54
	a genuine exercise in self restraint.	5:56
	One ate and drank his fill.	6:02
	So as to give a real meaning	6:05
	to abstinence as a spiritual discipline,	6:07
	excess preceded moderation,	6:12
	abandonment ushered in sobriety, self-gratification led	6:17
	the way to self mortification.	6:24
	That is why tomorrow, Monday became known as Blue Monday.	6:29
	It describe the Tuesday morning after feeling of depression	6:37
	and gloom following a day of revelry.	6:42
	The church for centuries anticipated this hangover	6:47
	by decorating the sanctuary with blue hangings	6:51
	on the Monday preceding Ash Wednesday.	6:55
	Tuesday was called Shrove Tuesday or Pancake Tuesday.	7:00
	Why Pancake Tuesday?	7:08
	Because one was not supposed to eat eggs	7:11
	or fat during Lent.	7:14
	So one used them all up the day before	7:19
	in a glorious Pancake feast.	7:23
	I wish the dining halls would make note of that.	7:27
	(audience laughing)	7:30
	Sweet.	7:31
	Mardi Gras is French part Fat Tuesday,	7:35
	perhaps because of the fat used in the Pancakes.	7:42
	I wish the steering committee	7:47
	of university weekends had known that.	7:48
	Perhaps it's timing would have been better.	7:52
	Carnival is one way of describing these Shrovetide days.	7:58
	And carnival may be derived from the Latin Carne Vale,	8:05
	which means, oh, flesh farewell.	8:12
	This may be the glutinous RFR to butcher meat	8:17
	or to one's own of war deploys for 40 days.	8:22
	If I our university really kept the Christian year	8:28
	in historical traditional ecumenical fashion,	8:32
	there would be high revelry on Tuesday night,	8:37
	a joint dance for both faculty	8:41
	and students on both campuses,	8:44
	even in the denominational centers.	8:48
	And then there would be a crowded service here	8:51
	in the university chapel, elderly on Wednesday morning.	8:55
	When the combined task force of all	9:00
	the university chaplains would anoint our foreheads	9:03
	with ashes saying to each one of us individually,	9:07
	''Memento, homo, quai pulvis es,	9:12
	et in pulverem reverteris.''	9:17
	Remember man, that our dust	9:21
	and to dust now shall return.	9:24
	Where would they get the ashes	9:33
	in this day of oil fire central heating?	9:36
	They would be made by burning the palms leftover,	9:40
	from last year's Palm Sunday,	9:46
	Now pick up your bulletins	9:50
	and turn to the denomination announcement.	9:53
	And you will realize that the Episcopalians	9:57
	is the only group in campus that appreciates this.	9:59
	The second announcement	10:03
	on Tuesday ,Shrove Tuesday,	10:06
	there will be a Mardi Gras at the center beginning	10:10
	at 5:30 p.m with a Pancake Supper.	10:14
	The university community is cordially invited.	10:17
	Well, that'd be a jam	10:20
	If we all go.	10:23
	(audience laughing)	10:23
	A notice about that Wednesday Ash 7:00 a.m	10:25
	holy communion, 5:30 p.m.	10:30
	Holy communion and the liturgy	10:35
	of Ash Wednesday followed by a quiet evening	10:37
	of meditation and devotions from 7:00 to 11:30.	10:40
	As a Presbyterian I'm glad to pay	10:48
	the Episcopalians this tribute.	10:50
	The appreciation of the holy year.	10:53
	Well, that brings us	10:58
	through Shrovetide, Pre-Lent to Lent.	10:59
	Now ,what about Lent?	11:04
	Lent is the name given to the 40 days,	11:10
	excluding Sundays between Ash Wednesday and Easter Eve.	11:14
	It may be derived from Latin, the Anglo-Saxon word	11:23
	for spring or from a Teutonic word,	11:28
	meaning long the hours of daylight being longer now than	11:32
	they were in the winter months.	11:39
	Ecclesiastically it is the long spring season mark	11:42
	as was said by penitents,	11:48
	prayer and fasting and symbolized	11:50
	by some disciplined act of super arrogation.	11:56
	I suppose some of us are going to give up one	12:03
	or more about hacky habits during Lent.	12:07
	Tobacco, the divine herb,	12:13
	the vice, which comes nearest virtue	12:19
	or the movies, even firm films at the Quadrangle theater.	12:25
	Basketball including	12:33
	the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament.	12:36
	Now that would be penitential discipline	12:39
	or dancing maybe because we suddenly recall	12:43
	what happened to king David	12:48
	as he pranced before the Ark of the Covenant.	12:51
	I once had a colleague who gave up hiking during Lent,	12:54
	but as he weighed over 200 pounds and never went anywhere,	13:00
	except by car,	13:04
	it didn't seem to me to be either accurate or penitential.	13:06
	There are three things that should be said	13:12
	to those of us who plan to discipline ourselves,	13:14
	in some self-denying Carnegie valley fashion	13:19
	Ad maiorem Dei gloriam Dei to the greater glory	13:25
	of God during the next 40 days.	13:30
	First, we do not give up sins	13:34
	as Linton discipline	13:41
	that does not count.	13:43
	Sins are never valid acts for the Christian,	13:47
	not even on Pancake Tuesday,	13:52
	there is no open season for conscious transgression	13:56
	for willing non-conformity to the will of God.	14:02
	We give up what is good as a personal,	14:08
	intentional lively sacrifice.	14:15
	We give up what is good for a temporary better.	14:19
	What is the temporary better?	14:26
	It is the proving to ourselves	14:30
	that under God and with God,	14:32
	we are in control about desires and appetite	14:38
	and legitimate pleasures	14:43
	and that they are not in control of us.	14:46
	Second, Sunday's don't count.	14:53
	Sunday's don't count.	15:00
	There are six Sundays in Lent.	15:03
	Now, note well	15:07
	the preposition in,	15:08
	the Sundays are not liturgically known as	15:11
	the six Sundays of Lent,	15:14
	but the six Sundays in Lent.	15:17
	Sunday is not part of Lent.	15:21
	Why? Because Sunday is never a day of fasting.	15:26
	Sunday is always a festival.	15:33
	Why? Because Sunday is always the celebration of the day	15:38
	in which Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.	15:45
	It is a hallelujah day.	15:51
	Every Sunday is a little Easter.	15:54
	That's why it is properly named the Lord's day.	15:58
	Therefore, if we are giving up tobacco during Lent,	16:05
	we may smoke on the sixth Sundays,	16:10
	but we ought to	16:15
	what we give up is not sinful.	16:19
	It is good.	16:22
	And Sunday is a good day,	16:24
	joyous day, a little Easter,	16:26
	always a festival, never a fast.	16:29
	Therefore, if you are planning to keep Lent,	16:34
	remember never on Sunday.	16:37
	Third, let those of us who do discipline ourselves,	16:45
	be aware of the sin of pride,	16:51
	the sin of having a good conceit of ourselves,	16:57
	the sin of Protestant phariseeism,	17:03
	the sin of thinking we are better	17:08
	than others who do not discipline themselves.	17:11
	The sin of justification by works.	17:16
	Isn't that what Jesus was trying to show in that terrible	17:23
	parable of the Bond Servant, which was our morning lesson.	17:28
	Let me read it to you again.	17:35
	As J.B. Phillips has paraphrased it.	17:37
	''If any of you have a servant ploughing	17:43
	or looking after the sheep,	17:47
	are you likely to say to him when he comes	17:50
	in from the field, come straight in	17:52
	and sit down to your meal.	17:55
	Aren't you more likely to say,	17:59
	get my supper ready.	18:02
	Change your coat and wait while I eat and drink.	18:05
	And then when I finish, you can have your meal.	18:11
	Do you feel particularly grateful to your servant for doing	18:17
	what you tell him?	18:21
	I don't think so.	18:24
	It is the same with yourselves.	18:27
	When you have done everything that you're told to do,	18:31
	you can say we are not much good as servants	18:34
	for we've only done what we ought to do.''	18:40
	Now, that is rough talk.	18:45
	That is the severe Jesus.	18:49
	It is thank God,	18:54
	not the whole gospel,	18:55
	but it is an emphasis which should not be forgotten,	18:58
	particularly by those of us who are going to keep Lent.	19:02
	Here is Jesus antidote for the conceit of merit,	19:09
	for the absurd belief	19:15
	that one can put God under an obligation	19:17
	by interested obedience.	19:21
	No man can make God his debtor.	19:25
	We cannot acquire a right to thanks.	19:30
	So when we come to Easter Eve	19:36
	and look back on our Lenten sacrifice,	19:39
	let us say we are not much good as servants,	19:42
	for we've only done what we ought to do.	19:49
	Keep these three caveats in mind,	19:54
	but there is another way of observing Lent to my mind.	20:00
	A better way though you may disagree,	20:04
	instead of cutting something off,	20:09
	let us add something.	20:14
	Let us consciously devote a period of time.	20:18
	Maybe daily, maybe weekly,	20:22
	40 times or six times to a conscious effort	20:26
	to broaden or deepen our understanding	20:32
	of the Christian faith	20:38
	to cultivate the things of the spirit,	20:41
	the religious undergirding about day-to-day living,	20:46
	how? Well, here are a few suggestion.	20:52
	If you have a dollar 50 to spare buy a copy	20:59
	of'' The Gospel According to PEANUTS,'' by Robert L. Short.	21:04
	Persuade some others in your dorm or in your house,	21:13
	in your fraternity and your sorority to do likewise	21:17
	and spend some hours together during Lent discovering some	21:22
	of the central ideas in Christianity,	21:28
	as they are enlivened by the art of the cartoon strip	21:33
	For Charles M chutes,	21:40
	the creator of peanuts	21:43
	on his own confession admits to preach.	21:45
	Lucy, is original sin incarnate.	21:54
	(audience laughing)	21:58
	Charlie Brown is despairing common man.	22:05
	Linus is a psychiatric case	22:13
	(audience laughing)	22:16
	full of pantophobia, fear of everything.	22:18
	Actually dependent on the portable security of his blanket.	22:24
	Snoopy is a hound of heaven.	22:32
	Now the interpreter of the strip calls on Tillich	22:37
	and Barth and Karl Bath and Shakespeare and T.S. Eliot	22:41
	and Graham Greene to shed light	22:46
	on this good grief collection of junior varsity adults.	22:49
	''The Gospel According to PEANUTS'' is a good textbook	22:57
	for a discussion group during Lent.	23:03
	If you are more sophisticated,	23:10
	then read what has almost become a Christian classic,	23:13
	C.S. Lewis, ''The Screwtape Letters.''	23:17
	Here are 51 letters from an old devil, Screwtape.	23:23
	One of his satanic majesties Lowerarchy.	23:32
	To his nephew, Wormwood,	23:38
	a junior devil who has been given	23:40
	the assignment of keeping a person	23:44
	from becoming a Christian.	23:47
	The books sparkles with wit and with unexpected twist.	23:51
	Jesus is the enemy.	23:57
	Satan is our father below.	24:01
	All you talk about is here Sex, pacifism, pleasure,	24:06
	prayer, time, spiritual fatigue.	24:13
	This little volume must have	24:19
	caused considerable annoyance in Hell.	24:21
	It will give you by yourself or in the company of others,	24:26
	food for thought and shuttles of delight	24:29
	and insight into the faith.	24:34
	I think it's now in paperback.	24:38
	And yet there may be a more excellent way.	24:43
	Read slowly and carefully through one of the gospels,	24:51
	come to know Jesus,	25:00
	the author and finisher of our faith.	25:03
	Let us look at him and unto him during Lent.	25:09
	As we have never looked before,	25:15
	let us walk with him through Galilee,	25:21
	listening to what He is saying	25:23
	and watching those to whom He's talking.	25:26
	Let us walk with Him to Jerusalem into that last week,	25:32
	which began so successfully, on Palm Sunday,	25:38
	ended so despairingly on Good Friday	25:45
	and was transformed so wondrously on Easter Sunday.	25:51
	How do you make	25:58
	of this carpenter son who took to itinerant preaching?	25:59
	And who for the joy that was set before him,	26:06
	endured the cross despising the shame.	26:10
	This man of joy, who was acquainted with grief.	26:17
	What will a study of him do to you?	26:26
	It may do what it did to Isaac Watts,	26:30
	who wrote a hymn about it.	26:33
	A hymn which Mahatma Gandhi said	26:37
	was his favorite Christian hymn.	26:39
	A hymn which we sang this morning.	26:45
	Let's look at the first and the last stanzas of that hymn.	26:49
	When I survey the wondrous cross,	27:00
	on which the Prince of glory died.	27:04
	Well, what? My richest gain	27:09
	I count, but loss and poor contempt on all my pride.	27:15
	So what? were the whole realm of nature mine.	27:25
	That were an offering far too small,	27:33
	then what can I give?	27:41
	Love so amazing,	27:43
	so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.	27:46
	Gazing at Jesus inspired Isaac Watts.	27:56
	It affected Mahatma Gandhi.	28:03
	It may do surprising things to us.	28:09
	We may never be quite the same again.	28:14
	We may be converted,	28:18
	transformed, born again.	28:24
	A happy Shrovetide and a blessing Lent to you all.	28:35
	Let us pray.	28:45
	Almighty and eternal God	28:52
	whose blessed son came to teach us about thee,	28:54
	and about ourselves,	28:59
	assist us a company of worshiping scholars.	29:01
	So to use this coming Lenten season,	29:07
	that our minds may be instructed,	29:11
	our hearts quickened and our wills directed	29:15
	through the teaching and in dwelling spirit	29:22
	of the same Jesus Christ our Lord,	29:25
	and may the blessing of the Lord,	29:30
	come upon you abundantly,	29:32
	may it keep you strong and tranquil in the truth	29:36
	his promises through	29:41
	the same Jesus Christ, our Lord.	29:43
	(soft music)	29:48

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Approaching Lent" (February 28, 1965)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4mk6992h

Date:

February 28, 1965

Speaker:

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

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0285
ref5775_zf3
uachapelsermaud
duke:628082
dcrau002284
ark:/87924/r4mk6992h
df94adef-1c50-4f0b-97a9-f792fcab8e29

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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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 - "Approaching Lent" (February 28, 1965)

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1. James T. Cleland - "Approaching Lent" (February 28, 1965)

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James T. Cleland - "Approaching Lent" (February 28, 1965)

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