James T. Cleland - "Three Arrow Prayers" (November 1, 1970)

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	(vocal music)	0:05
-	God has commended us to pray.	6:10
	He has said that we should confess our sins	6:16
	that we should acknowledge our faults before him.	6:20
	And that if we do, he will be merciful.	6:25
	Let us therefore unite our hearts	6:29
	and our voices in our prayer of confession and for part.	6:32
	Let us pray.	6:36
	Oh Lord, Most Holy God, most mighty,	6:38
	who has found us wanting and yet has not forsaken us.	6:43
	We confess that we have often witnessed	6:48
	to our pride and vanity instead of witnessing to thy grace.	6:50
	The peace and joy thou didst offer us.	6:55
	We sold for power and prestige.	6:58
	We have trusted too much in the work	7:02
	of our hands and in the fruit of our laboratories,	7:05
	we have made the clean earth dirty,	7:08
	and we have behaved as though we were the last generation,	7:11
	which would need to live on this planet.	7:15
	We have not remembered our total need of thy wisdom.	7:18
	Save us from all sin.	7:22
	We humbly pray through Jesus Christ, our Lord, amen.	7:24
	The scriptures quote, our heavenly father is saying,	7:32
	I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked,	7:36
	but that he should turn again.	7:40
	God is not willing that any should perish	7:44
	but that all should come to repentance, says the scriptures.	7:47
	We have been assured from Genesis	7:52
	to revelation that this is the attitude	7:55
	of our heavenly father who scorns evil,	7:58
	but who loves the sinner	8:02
	and welcomes the repentance sinner back into the fold again.	8:05
	So be it.	8:11
	(vocal music)	8:19
	Our scripture for this morning is Luke chapter 18	13:40
	versus nine through 14 and chapter 22 versus 39 through 44.	13:46
	He also told this parable to some who trusted	13:55
	in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.	13:59
	Two men went up into the temple to pray,	14:05
	one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.	14:09
	The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself.	14:14
	God, I thank thee that I am not like other men,	14:19
	extortionists, unjust, adulterers	14:23
	or even like this tax collector.	14:28
	I fast twice a week.	14:31
	I give tithes of all that I get.	14:34
	But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift	14:37
	up his eyes to heaven,	14:43
	but beat his breasts saying,	14:45
	God be merciful to me a sinner.	14:48
	I tell you this man went down to his house justified	14:53
	rather than the other.	14:58
	For everyone who exhausts himself will be humbled,	15:01
	but he who humbles himself will be exhausted.	15:06
	And he came out and went as was his custom	15:14
	to the Mount of Olives and the disciples followed him.	15:19
	And when he came to the place, he said to them,	15:23
	pray that you may not enter into temptation,	15:28
	and he withdrew from them	15:32
	about a stone's throw and knelt down and prayed,	15:34
	Father, if thou aren't willing,	15:39
	remove this cup from me.	15:42
	Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.	15:45
	And there appeared to him and angel from heaven,	15:50
	strengthening him and being in agony,	15:54
	he prayed more earnestly and his sweat became	15:57
	like great drops of blood falling down upon the ground.	16:01
	Here end the reading.	16:06
	(vocal music)	16:09
-	The Lord be with you.	16:47
Crowd	And also with you.	16:49
-	Let us pray.	16:50
	Almighty God, our heavenly father,	17:00
	in the quietness and holiness of this good time.	17:03
	We left our hearts in thanks to thee,	17:08
	for the blessings of which we are mindful as we come	17:12
	to the middle of this semester.	17:15
	Without any design,	17:19
	we simply offer our thanks for teachers.	17:20
	Some of whom have been our professors.	17:24
	Some of whom have been our roommates.	17:28
	Some have been secretaries on the campus.	17:31
	Some have been our enemies.	17:35
	We've had many teachers.	17:38
	We thank thee for all of them.	17:40
	For everyone and for every experience	17:44
	through which we have learned,	17:47
	through which we have come to know what reality is.	17:50
	Some of these experiences, oh, God have been painful.	17:54
	Some of our teachers have been stern.	17:59
	But now in perspective and on reflection,	18:03
	we give the thanks.	18:07
	Oh God, we are grateful for books through the printed page,	18:10
	many people whom we have never seen have taught us.	18:15
	We are grateful heavenly father	18:21
	for people who have been friends to us at times	18:23
	especially when we have needed friends.	18:26
	And unexpectedly,	18:30
	some of our stern teachers have become our best friends.	18:31
	Oh God, of every good thing,	18:39
	we are grateful for the simple things, clean air,	18:41
	a night's rest, a good meal, the changing seasons.	18:46
	We thank thee for the chapel.	18:55
	For the opportunity it continually provides	18:58
	for us to come together in common worship.	19:01
	Without denominational hangups,	19:05
	we thank thee for those who have come	19:09
	from abroad to preach to us,	19:10
	for those in our own community who know us	19:13
	and who preach to us, students and faculty, ministers.	19:17
	And so we thank thee oh God	19:24
	for everyone who has contributed to the enrichment	19:25
	of our worship of thee.	19:29
	Choir members, communion assistance, ushers, collectors,	19:32
	the one in the Pew next to us.	19:38
	So many people have done so very much	19:42
	for all of us, oh God,	19:45
	That we are grateful to each other,	19:49
	but supremely grateful to thee.	19:50
	And now our father, thou who art our eternal father,	19:55
	strong to save,	20:01
	hear us as we pray for our fellow man.	20:03
	We pray for the seniors who are in their final year.	20:08
	And may their final weeks and months here at Duke,	20:16
	be times when the tangled and fragmentary meanings	20:21
	of education may come to have a central	20:24
	and controlling purpose.	20:28
	May the Lord Jesus Christ be lifted up and chosen	20:31
	as master of life.	20:35
	Grant, oh God, that students may look	20:40
	on professors as teachers rather than as grade givers.	20:43
	And that professors may look	20:48
	on students as opportunities to mold the future,	20:51
	rather than as necessary evils in academic life.	20:54
	We pray that men may see women as persons	20:59
	more than as sex targets.	21:03
	That women may view men as sons of God,	21:06
	more than as sources of money and status.	21:09
	Heavenly father help us all,	21:15
	employers and employees, parents and children,	21:17
	merchants and customers to treat each other	21:20
	as people who are precious in thy sight.	21:23
	And now Lord, who are the source	21:29
	of charity and the fountain of sanity,	21:31
	deliver thy children in these days of political fervor	21:34
	from the sins of lying and slander.	21:38
	Save us from excessive and abusive language	21:41
	in the name of patriotism.	21:44
	Grant us grace to avoid name calling,	21:47
	deliver us from angry rhetoric	21:51
	that fans discontent into hatred.	21:53
	Save us from bombastic words that posture	21:56
	instead of persuading.	22:00
	Give us above everything to know	22:04
	and to follow the mind of Christ.	22:06
	Or we ask it in his name,	22:10
	as we remember the words he has taught us to use	22:13
	when we pray saying,	22:16
	Our Father who art in heaven,	22:18
	Hallowed thy name, thy kingdom come,	22:21
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	22:24
	Give us this day our daily bread,	22:29
	and forgive us our trespasses	22:32
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	22:34
	And lead us not into temptation,	22:37
	but deliver us from evil	22:40
	for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory	22:42
	forever, amen.	22:46
-	The grace of God be with us all.	23:08
	The last time I preached to a homecoming congregation,	23:15
	was during alumni weekend in June of this year.	23:20
	I spoke about the urgent need for a renovation of the chapel	23:27
	and of the appurtenances their on.	23:34
	The title of the sermon was the Duke Chapel Blues.	23:39
	For some reason or other, it did not go down easily	23:45
	or well with certain officials in the alumni office.	23:49
	I'm no longer entirely persona grata in what was once	23:56
	and probably should still be the president's house.	24:01
	Therefore I decided some time ago to be administratively	24:06
	innocuous this morning.	24:11
	I've chosen a non alumni other than homecoming subject,	24:15
	namely prayer.	24:23
	Now in preparation, I turned to an unusual anthology,	24:26
	a dictionary of military and Naval quotations,	24:32
	by Robert Debs Heinel.	24:37
	Colonel Heinel was to the Marines for Admiral rickover	24:42
	is to the Navy.	24:47
	Able, independent, well or red pertinent and pungent.	24:49
	Let me share with you three of the quotations subsumed	25:01
	under the heading prayer before action.	25:06
	The first is said to have been prayed back in 1917	25:13
	by the commander-in-chief of the British Army	25:17
	in World War One.	25:22
	So Douglas Haig,	25:24
	please God,	25:27
	let there be victory before the Americans arrived.	25:29
	The answer was not in accord with the intrigue.	25:38
	The second was the petition of a young Highlander,	25:43
	a member of the clan Fraser on the eve	25:47
	of the Battle of Cloden 1746,	25:51
	when the Stuart cause was happily forever lost.	25:56
	Dear Lord, on the morrow,	26:03
	pray do not let me kill anyone.	26:07
	And dear Lord pray do not let anyone kill me.	26:12
	One wonders we lived perhaps so maybe that's why we know	26:19
	the prayer.	26:23
	The third was offered by Sir Jacob Astley,	26:26
	a cavalier officer before the Battle of Edgehill	26:31
	against crumbles around heads in 1642.	26:35
	Oh, Lord thou knowest how busy I must be this day,	26:41
	if I forget thee, do not thou forget me.	26:49
	It's a good prayer for a busy person	26:58
	but one shouldn't be that busy every day.	27:03
	Now these petitions give us one insight into the fact	27:08
	and the meaning of prayer.	27:12
	Prayer is based on the postulate that there is a God	27:15
	with whom we make contact,	27:19
	a God who hears and answers prayer,	27:24
	though not always nor necessarily in accordance	27:29
	with our desires.	27:34
	It assumes that the spirit	27:37
	of man is akin to the spirit of the universe.	27:39
	And that a human being seeks to augment his finite energy	27:44
	from the infinite source of all energy.	27:51
	Now in the light of that postulate,	27:57
	let us think of three arrow prayers,	27:59
	cold arrow because they are short.	28:04
	Aimed and speeding in flight.	28:09
	They may well be at the very heart of our own prayer life	28:15
	for ourselves as individuals and as a gathered congregation.	28:21
	The first was prayed by Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane,	28:29
	on the night before he was crucified,	28:35
	not my will but thy will be done.	28:38
	It was not an easy thing for Jesus to say,	28:45
	immediately before he had prayed,	28:51
	father, if thy are willing, remove this cup from me.	28:54
	What cup?	29:04
	The cup of death.	29:06
	At the age of 33.	29:08
	what Jesus had to pray not my will, but thy be done.	29:13
	Why? Because it is the second petition of the prayer	29:20
	which he taught his disciples,	29:25
	which we prayed together this morning.	29:29
	Thy will be on earth as it is in heaven.	29:32
	There was a consistency between our Lord's teaching,	29:39
	and his behavior.	29:44
	His behavior in the Garden of Gethsemane was identical	29:47
	with his attitude on the Mount of the Sermon.	29:53
	God was primary.	29:58
	God's will was first.	30:00
	God's will was Jesus will so help him God,	30:04
	But as you heard in the lesson this morning,	30:11
	he sweated blood to say it.	30:15
	His was like clots of blood falling to the ground,	30:20
	is how the new English Bible translates the verse.	30:27
	What do we think of such a prayer?	30:32
	One commentator write if mankind were granted	30:37
	but one prayer,	30:41
	what other could we choose?	30:43
	But another commentator says,	30:47
	I think it is the most fearful prayer to pray in the world.	30:50
	It recalls the awesome final question put to a young	30:58
	divinity graduate at the end of a two hours grueling	31:01
	grilling before a committee	31:08
	in an examination for ordination.	31:11
	The ancient inevitable final question was,	31:14
	are you willing to be damned for the glory of God?	31:20
	Are you willing to be damned for the glory of God?	31:26
	The candidate responded correctly?	31:33
	I am.	31:37
	Then he added, I am also willing that the committee	31:41
	be damned for the glory of God.	31:46
	And no one dare gain say the addition,	31:53
	but the committee did find him guilty	31:58
	of a lack of Christian charity.	32:01
	And to my knowledge that question was never asked again	32:06
	in that Presbytery.	32:11
	Not my will but thine be done,	32:16
	points out that prayer is not an attempt	32:20
	to change God's will	32:23
	but to discover it to go along with it even if it means	32:26
	altering our own wills.	32:33
	Thomas Carlyle,	32:36
	the philosophical Scottish historian as said,	32:38
	it was the only prayer that a Christian should pray.	32:43
	Someone commented,	32:49
	that there was one other which Carlyle should add.	32:52
	What do you think the prayer was?	32:57
	Which was suggested as an addition	33:00
	to Carlyle's choice of not my will but thine be done.	33:04
	It's found in that jarring parable	33:09
	of the Pharisee and the publican,	33:13
	which was the other part of our morning lesson,	33:16
	the strict and upright Israelite	33:20
	in contrast with the Jewish tax collector who worked	33:23
	for the Roman army of occupation.	33:29
	The Pharisee had understandably enough	33:33
	a good conceit of himself.	33:36
	He played either with himself or by himself	33:40
	that he was conscious of freedom from the vices	33:45
	which affected other men, especially tax collectors.	33:48
	And then he reminded God	33:54
	of two specific instances of his own piety.	33:56
	He fasted twice a week.	34:01
	He gave away 10% of his income.	34:05
	Boy, that's the kind of alumnus duke would like to have	34:10
	with regard to the loyalty fund.	34:13
	And the chapel could use some of it too right now	34:17
	According to the standards of legal righteousness	34:22
	this fallacy was exhibit A.	34:25
	The tax gatherer stood in a distant corner,	34:30
	kept his distance would not even raise his eyes to heaven.	34:35
	All he murmured beating his breast.	34:42
	A gesture of despair was God be merciful to me,	34:45
	miserable me,	34:53
	a sinner.	34:55
	And Jesus said that one of these two men	34:58
	went home justified.	35:01
	That is acquitted every sins, right with God.	35:05
	And it wasn't the Pharisee,	35:12
	though unworthy the public harness was accepted of heaven.	35:16
	This suggests that the church should not be a museum	35:22
	for saints but a hospital for sinners	35:27
	who know they are sinners,	35:34
	who are sorry about it and who are on their way to health,	35:37
	which is what salvation means.	35:45
	What makes a person realize he is a sinner?	35:50
	May well be the moment when he actually sees himself set	35:54
	against the holy love of God	36:00
	as it was incarnated in the man Jesus.	36:04
	Then even a law abiding, church going, Bible reading,	36:10
	homecoming Christian Pharisee,	36:17
	may be converted to the humility	36:21
	which recognizes that he is a sinner	36:23
	but accept such a man may then be able to pray and to mean,	36:28
	not my sinful will,	36:37
	but thy holy will be done in me.	36:42
	A third arrow prayer alluded me as I worked on this sermon.	36:52
	Then one day quite it recently,	36:59
	driving with a young Episcopal Rector	37:02
	to a Diocesan Conference where at the Bishop's request,	37:05
	I was supposed to teach his clergy how to preach	37:11
	like Presbyterians in four lectures.	37:15
	I was given the third prayer.	37:19
	I told the director about this sermon	37:24
	and he responded instantly,	37:27
	I know the third selection,	37:30
	Lord I believe help thou my unbelief.	37:35
	And at once I realized that he was right.	37:45
	I recall the setting of the petition.	37:51
	So do some of you.	37:54
	A distracted father had brought his epileptic son	37:56
	to the disciples to be cured.	38:02
	They were unable to make him well in the language	38:06
	of the time to cast out the demon, which possessed the boy.	38:09
	Then Jesus appeared in the scene.	38:16
	He listened to the story	38:19
	of suffering and failure and he responded.	38:21
	Everything is possible to the one who has faith	38:27
	and the father burst out.	38:36
	I have faith, help me where my faith fall short.	38:38
	The same rector drove me back to my plane from the diocese	38:49
	and conference,	38:53
	three days after our first meeting.	38:55
	He then told me why Lord, I believe,	38:58
	helped thou my unbelief was the prayer ever uppermost	39:03
	in his mind.	39:07
	His wife had undergone open heart surgery.	39:10
	When the operation was over, the surgeon said to him,	39:16
	the outlook is not promising.	39:20
	I have stood on my feet	39:26
	for 10 hours struggling to guarantee your wife's life.	39:28
	Now you go and spend two hours on your knees.	39:36
	The rector confessed that he had little real acquaintance	39:45
	with such a prayer of supplication,	39:49
	but he did us commanded for two hours.	39:53
	Then he return to the hospital to his wife's room.	39:58
	Senior resident met him, talked with him.	40:03
	We did not believe that she could live,	40:08
	but in the last two hours, something amazing has happened.	40:12
	The blood pressure is up.	40:19
	The temperature is down.	40:22
	I think she's gonna make it.	40:25
	She's alive today.	40:29
	She has given birth to a son.	40:31
	She lives life fully.	40:35
	Her husband is still amazed at,	40:39
	puzzled over the miracle of healing.	40:43
	He walks on tiptoe in this area of his faith.	40:47
	His constant prayers is,	40:54
	Lord, I believe help thou my unbelief.	40:57
	He's in good company was none other than St. Paul who wrote,	41:05
	now we see through a glass darkly	41:11
	or now we see only the puzzling reflections in a mirror.	41:16
	And remember that in the first century,	41:23
	mirrors were not made of clear glasses today.	41:26
	Now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face.	41:32
	Now I know in part, the time will come	41:37
	when I shall understand fully.	41:43
	On this earth,	41:46
	there is a tentativeness to our faith, a gentle agnosticism	41:47
	but it is still faith.	41:56
	A confidence in the God revealed to us in and by Jesus,	42:00
	the Lord of our faith.	42:06
	That's why Lord, I believe help thou my unbelief	42:08
	is the valid prayer Of most of us	42:12
	where we are mixtures of belief and unbelief of trust	42:18
	and doubt of confidence in the heart and hesitation	42:22
	in the head.	42:29
	There then are three arrow prayers.	42:32
	All from the New Testament and all still valid	42:36
	after 19th centuries.	42:42
	This is not all there is to prayer.	42:45
	Nothing has been said about two major elements,	42:48
	Thanksgiving and intercession.	42:52
	But if we began our private devotions	42:56
	with these three prayer.	43:00
	And if we offered them to God	43:04
	before every service of corporate worship,	43:07
	and really meant what we said,	43:11
	our whole prayer life would have a different emphasis.	43:16
	God would be primary.	43:22
	We would be his grown up, mature children.	43:25
	We would be open-minded to him and to his purpose for us.	43:31
	So let it be and let us pray.	43:41
	Not our will, but thine oh God, be done.	43:51
	God be merciful to us sinners.	44:00
	Lord, we believe help thou our unbelief, amen.	44:09
	(vocal music)	44:24
	(crowd applauds)	59:03

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Three Arrow Prayers" (November 1, 1970)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r44j0fz55

Date:

November 1, 1970

Speaker:

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

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0545
ref6293_7ra
uachapelsermaud
duke:628080
dcrau002534
ark:/87924/r44j0fz55
3a6ec404-ece0-4f6f-84db-7b05eeb6b1f0

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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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 - "Three Arrow Prayers" (November 1, 1970)

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1. James T. Cleland - "Three Arrow Prayers" (November 1, 1970)

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