James T. Cleland - "Unexpected Goodness" (January 16, 1972)

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	(noise bang)	0:04
	(solemn church organ music)	0:08
-	Dearly beloved,	4:02
	we are come together in the presence of almighty God	4:04
	to make humble confession of our sins unto him,	4:08
	to set forth His worthy praise,	4:12
	to hear His most holy word,	4:16
	to declare our faith in Him,	4:19
	to ask for ourselves and for all men	4:22
	those things which are necessary	4:26
	for body, and mind, and spirit,	4:28
	and to offer unto God the service of our lives	4:32
	to receive his blessing.	4:36
	Therefore, let us rejoice	4:39
	and offer unto God our praises	4:41
	as we sing Isaac Watts' rendition of Psalm 90.	4:44
	Let us rise to sing.	4:49
	(solemn organ music)	4:52
	(singing drowned out by organ)	5:20
-	Let us pray.	7:40
	Almighty God, we offer our prayer of confession	7:45
	because we are unnecessarily deficient and we know it.	7:50
	We could have done better at a lot of points	7:56
	and our failure to do so	7:59
	has made us justifiably uncomfortable.	8:02
	The only way we can honestly get comfortable	8:06
	about our past sins is to confess them to you	8:09
	in the presence of one another,	8:13
	and to ask your forgiveness.	8:16
	We admit that we often ask the wrong questions.	8:19
	When we're faced with a decision about right and wrong,	8:24
	we often ask what our pals think about it	8:28
	rather than asking what Jesus Christ thinks about it.	8:31
	Oh God, we often get our priorities mixed up.	8:37
	We substitute sleeping for worship.	8:41
	We try to make a name for ourselves	8:45
	at the very time we should be trying to heal	8:47
	the wounds of mankind.	8:50
	We put our money in the wrong places.	8:53
	We seem to be able to afford	8:57
	about everything that comes along that we want,	8:59
	and then we tell the church we're out of funds.	9:02
	Oh, Lord, we are sinners	9:07
	in the way we get our priorities mixed up.	9:09
	As we confess our sins together,	9:14
	we are aware that the particulars of our sinfulness	9:16
	are not the same.	9:20
	Some of us are guilty of holding on	9:22
	to stuffy old notions about our Christian faith,	9:24
	which are not willing to	9:28
	be re-examined in the light of scripture	9:31
	or with the aid of the Holy Spirit.	9:34
	Others of us are not at all stuffy,	9:37
	but we sensationalize everything about our Christian faith.	9:40
	Instead of making sure that we are truly Christian,	9:45
	we're always making sure that we're truly sensational.	9:49
	But oh God, although the particulars	9:54
	of our sinning are different,	9:56
	we are all united in our failure to seek first, your will,	9:57
	your kingdom, and your righteousness.	10:02
	We ask forgiveness.	10:06
	We ask restoration.	10:09
	We ask your love and acceptance.	10:12
	We pray for a new chance,	10:15
	not merely to do better,	10:18
	but by Your Grace to do a whole lot better.	10:21
	In Jesus' name, we ask this, amen.	10:26
	What is the expectation	10:35
	of those who confess their sins to God,	10:38
	and ask his pardon?	10:41
	This was on the minds of	10:45
	some men of old and one of them,	10:49
	and we call the Psalmist,	10:51
	offered a prayer unto God	10:55
	at this very point in his life.	10:58
	And this is his prayer.	11:02
	And this prayer is the basis of our own assurance.	11:05
	He said "In Thee our fathers trusted.	11:11
	They trusted and thou didst deliver them.	11:15
	To Thee they cried and were saved.	11:19
	In Thee they trusted and were not disappointed."	11:23
	So be it with us.	11:30
	I would like to take a few moments now	11:35
	to call some things to your attention	11:38
	here on the first Sunday of our new semester.	11:40
	The first is that we have a few new students with us	11:44
	who were not present in our student body	11:49
	in the fall semester.	11:52
	Some freshmen, some transfers,	11:54
	some old students returning.	11:58
	We extend to you here in the university chapel,	12:01
	a warm and cordial welcome	12:05
	to the university service	12:08
	as well as to Duke University.	12:10
	And we invite you to make worshiping here in the chapel	12:12
	a regular part of your Duke University experience.	12:15
	You will see next Sunday and here,	12:21
	our chapel choir, which you neither see	12:25
	nor hear this morning	12:28
	because they were not back in time to rehearse	12:30
	for the Sunday service.	12:33
	They are, of course,	12:36
	a very great part of the leadership of our service.	12:37
	Some of you will wish to try out	12:41
	for a membership in the chapel choir.	12:44
	Secondly, I would like to direct your attention,	12:49
	especially to the preacher that we have coming next Sunday,	12:52
	Dr. J. Russell Chandran,	12:56
	who has preached here in this chapel before,	12:58
	some six or seven years ago.	13:01
	He is one of the leaders of the World Church,	13:04
	being a member of the central committee of the	13:07
	World Council of Churches.	13:09
	But I mentioned his coming at this time particularly	13:12
	because of the situation that has existed	13:15
	in India and Pakistan.	13:18
	Dr. Chandran is a native Indian.	13:21
	He is a leader of the church in India,	13:26
	and he has just flown from India to the United States.	13:29
	And I think that his message next Sunday	13:34
	will be particularly interesting to all of you	13:36
	who would like to know more about what has happened	13:39
	to our friends in that part of the world.	13:41
	And the last thing that I want to mention	13:45
	by way of calling your attention to unusual things	13:47
	is the opera that will be here in the chapel	13:51
	at four o'clock today.	13:53
	I saw the dress rehearsal of that last night.	13:56
	And if you miss it, you will be sorry.	14:00
	It is a French treatment of the parable of the prodigal son.	14:03
	And in these days of female consciousness,	14:12
	it is particularly interesting to note	14:15
	that the mother of the prodigal son	14:17
	has been introduced into the drama,	14:19
	and it is of high artistic value.	14:23
	And I hope that you will be here to hear it.	14:27
	For our responsive prayer of adoration,	14:33
	let us turn to 555	14:39
	in the Psalter section of your hymnal,	14:41
	and pray responsively.	14:45
	Oh Lord, our Lord,	14:53
	how majestic is Thy name in all the earth.	14:55
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:00
-	Thou has founded a bulwark because of thy foes.	15:05
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:10
-	When I look at Thy heavens,	15:12
	the work of Thy fingers,	15:14
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:16
-	What is man that Thou art mindful of him?	15:20
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:23
-	Yet Thou has made him little less than God.	15:26
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:30
-	Thou hast given him dominion over the works of Thy hands.	15:33
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:37
-	All sheep and oxen.	15:40
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:42
-	The birds of the air, the fish of the sea.	15:44
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:47
-	Oh Lord, our Lord,	15:51
	(audience speaking indistinctly)	15:54
	(solemn organ music)	15:59
	♪ The Lord is merciful and gracious ♪	16:59
	♪ Slow to anger ♪	17:09
	♪ And plenteous in mercy ♪	17:17
	♪ He will not always chide ♪	17:35
	♪ Neither will he keep his anger forever ♪	17:41
	♪ He hath not dealt with us ♪	17:58
	♪ After our sins ♪	18:04
	♪ Nor rewarded us ♪	18:09
	♪ According to our iniquities ♪	18:15
	♪ For as the heaven is high above the earth ♪	18:27
	♪ So great is his mercy ♪	18:37
	♪ Toward them that fear him ♪	18:44
-	Our scripture this morning	19:27
	is taken from the book of John 8: 1-11.	19:28
	"But when Jesus went to the Mount of Olives,	19:36
	early in the morning, he came again to the temple.	19:39
	All the people came to him	19:43
	and he sat down and taught them.	19:46
	The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman	19:49
	who had been caught in adultery.	19:53
	And placing her in the midst, they said to him,	19:55
	'Teacher, this woman has been caught	20:00
	in the act of adultery.	20:02
	Now in the law, Moses commanded us	20:05
	to stone such.	20:08
	What do you say about her?'	20:10
	This they said to test him,	20:13
	that they might have some charge to bring against him.	20:15
	Jesus bent down	20:20
	and wrote with his finger on the ground.	20:22
	And they continued to ask him.	20:25
	He stood up and said to him,	20:28
	'Let him who is without sin among you	20:30
	be the first to throw a stone at her.'	20:34
	And once more he bent down	20:38
	and wrote with his finger on the ground.	20:40
	But when they had heard it, they went away,	20:43
	one by one, beginning with the eldest.	20:47
	And Jesus was left alone	20:51
	with the woman standing before him.	20:53
	Jesus looked up and said to her,	20:57
	'Woman, where are they?	20:59
	Has no one condemned you?'	21:02
	She said, 'No one, Lord.'	21:05
	And Jesus said, 'Neither do I condemn you.	21:08
	Go and do not sin again.'"	21:12
	Here endeth the reading.	21:16
	(solemn organ music)	21:18
	(singing drowned out by organ)	21:28
-	The Lord be with you.	22:01
	Let us pray.	22:05
	Our heavenly Father,	22:12
	in recognition of the fact	22:15
	that we are not entirely sufficient unto ourselves,	22:17
	that we are not our own creators,	22:22
	that we receive, use, and enjoy a great many things	22:25
	we did not ourselves provide,	22:29
	we now pause to acknowledge this	22:33
	to be aware of our indebtedness to others	22:36
	and to the ultimate source of our belongings	22:39
	and of our blessings.	22:42
	We recognize you as that source, oh God,	22:44
	and we realized that we have not deserved these gifts	22:48
	so that we know the only reasonable attitude we can have	22:52
	is one of gratitude.	22:57
	So here we are with Thanksgiving on our lips	23:00
	and in our hearts.	23:02
	We give you thanks for the degree of health	23:05
	we enjoy this morning,	23:08
	for the measure of peace there is in the world,	23:10
	for the percentage of employment we have in our nation,	23:15
	for the extent to which we have begun	23:20
	to see what our education is all about,	23:24
	for the ability that we have had to work out plans	23:29
	for our education,	23:32
	for all of the pluses in our lives	23:35
	that tend to offset the minuses.	23:38
	We even thank you	23:41
	that the minuses can with your help, become pluses.	23:43
	We are therefore grateful for light that shines in darkness,	23:48
	for warm places on a very cold day,	23:53
	for fresh insight in the midst of confusion,	23:57
	and for a friend in our times of anxiety.	24:00
	We are grateful God, for the creative people in our lives,	24:05
	and above everyone else, for Jesus.	24:09
	Lord, as we express thanks	24:15
	for blessings in the past and in the present,	24:17
	we also make new claims upon Your love and grace,	24:20
	asking fresh favors for others and ourselves.	24:24
	We request Your blessing upon the efforts	24:30
	now being made to answer Your son's prayer,	24:33
	that we might all be one in Him.	24:35
	Give courage and love to those who seek	24:39
	to bring Catholic and Protestant together,	24:41
	to those who seek to unite liberal and conservative.	24:45
	Grant to all of us a gracious portion	24:49
	of the mind of Christ	24:52
	so that by His living in us,	24:55
	we may find our unity in Him.	24:59
	Oh God, we pray that without being slaves	25:05
	to the letter of scripture,	25:07
	we may hunger and thirst after the living word of God	25:09
	to be found in the Bible.	25:13
	Give us liberally the Holy Spirit	25:16
	to guide us into all truth as Christ has promised.	25:20
	Our Father, we ask you for the things we've prayed for	25:28
	so many times that the habit seems almost trite.	25:31
	And yet we still do need food, clean air,	25:36
	healing for our hurts, comfort for our sorrows,	25:42
	strength for the present day.	25:47
	We pray for Christ-like graces	25:51
	in the important little places of our lives.	25:54
	May we not automatically blame	25:58
	the pilot of the plane or the reservation clerk	26:02
	when our travel plans go wrong.	26:06
	May we not have the tendency to blame the professor	26:11
	for that low grade we got,	26:15
	but first to examine ourselves.	26:18
	Grant that we may not put wholesale judgmental labels	26:23
	on individuals by calling them	26:28
	the establishment, hippies, animals,	26:31
	when perhaps we don't even know them personally at all.	26:36
	Indeed in all things, both great and small,	26:41
	give us the spirit of Jesus,	26:46
	for we make our prayer in his name,	26:49
	remembering that better prayer	26:52
	which he taught all his disciples to pray saying	26:54
	"Our father who art in heaven,	26:58
	hallowed be thy name.	27:01
	Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done	27:03
	on earth as it is in heaven.	27:06
	Give us this day our daily bread	27:09
	and forgive us our trespasses	27:12
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	27:14
	And lead us not into temptation,	27:17
	but deliver us from evil.	27:20
	For thine is the kingdom and the power	27:22
	and the glory forever.	27:25
	Amen."	27:27
-	Grace to you and peace	27:54
	from God, Our Father,	27:57
	and the Lord, Jesus Christ.	28:00
	One morning last December,	28:09
	I found myself walking behind a youth	28:12
	as I headed for my office on west campus.	28:16
	He was bare of foot and they were dirty.	28:22
	His blue jeans were not only worn,	28:28
	but torn here and there.	28:32
	His t-shirt was soiled.	28:36
	His hair was long and stringy and messy.	28:40
	He was a perambulating scarecrow.	28:48
	He opened the door into the divinity school.	28:54
	And as he did so,	28:58
	he must've seen my reflection in the glass of the door	29:00
	for he stood aside to allow me to enter.	29:05
	I said, "Go ahead."	29:10
	He replied, "Oh no, sir.	29:12
	After you."	29:16
	And I thought to myself, thought I,	29:19
	he looks like hell,	29:23
	and he sounds like heaven.	29:25
	He looks like hell and he sounds like heaven.	29:30
	Then I had another thought.	29:33
	That incident is a primer for a sermon.	29:36
	It was, and this is the sermon	29:42
	on unexpected goodness.	29:47
	The immediate outcome of my first reflection on the incident	29:53
	was that there is more than one illustration	29:57
	of unexpected goodness in the New Testament.	30:01
	For instance, think of the passage,	30:06
	which was our scripture lesson.	30:08
	The story of the woman taken in adultery.	30:11
	Many of us reading this story concentrate	30:17
	on the almost fate of the woman,	30:20
	death by stoning,	30:24
	or on the strong yet gentle refusal of Jesus	30:29
	to pass judgment.	30:34
	"Neither do I condemn you.	30:37
	You may go.	30:40
	Do not sin again."	30:43
	What amazes me	30:47
	is the behavior of the accusers.	30:50
	They knew their Jewish law.	30:55
	The penalty for adultery could be death by stoning.	30:59
	They wondered what this unofficial amateur rabbi,	31:06
	Jesus by name, would say on the matter.	31:12
	He offered no criticism of the law.	31:18
	He merely offered an individual,	31:24
	personal criterion of judgment.	31:28
	"Let the one who is without sin among you	31:33
	throw the first stone at her."	31:37
	No one did.	31:42
	One by one, they went away,	31:46
	the eldest first.	31:50
	That's what grips me about this story,	31:55
	the unexpected goodness	31:59
	of unlikely individuals.	32:03
	I'm caught by the same fact in two of the records	32:07
	of the last supper.	32:10
	Jesus has just told the intimate group of 12,	32:13
	that one of them	32:17
	would betray him to the establishment.	32:20
	The reaction is amazing.	32:25
	Each did not say, "Is it he?	32:28
	Or he, or he?"	32:31
	Each said "Is it I?"	32:36
	Now this can be construed,	32:40
	"Oh Lord, it couldn't be I could it?"	32:42
	But I'm willing to gamble on the fact that each man	32:47
	knew he had his price,	32:52
	his own price,	32:56
	and were scared.	32:59
	There's no complacent goodness here,	33:02
	no self satisfaction.	33:06
	For me, the interpretation is again, unexpected goodness.	33:09
	And you can add the words of the repentant thief	33:17
	on the cross,	33:21
	to his companion, who was abusing the crucified Jesus.	33:23
	And add to that the last words	33:30
	of the hard bitten Roman officer	33:33
	in charge of the crucifixion.	33:36
	He said of Jesus, "This man	33:41
	was certainly a son of God."	33:44
	Unexpected goodness in strange places	33:49
	is not uncommon in the gospels.	33:53
	Perhaps it's all summed up in one statement	33:56
	which Jesus made,	33:59
	statements which is now found in the sermon on the Mount.	34:01
	He's speaking to men,	34:06
	men who are fathers.	34:08
	"Is there a man among you	34:13
	who will offer his son a stone	34:17
	when he asks for bread?	34:21
	Or a snake, when he asks for a fish?	34:24
	If you then, bad as you are,	34:30
	know how to give your children what is good for them,	34:35
	how much more will your heavenly father give you,	34:40
	give good things to those who ask?	34:42
	Unexpected goodness.	34:47
	Bad as you are, you're not so bad.	34:49
	Now it must be obvious that we're faced	34:58
	with two dangers here in looking at these passages.	35:00
	First, that of categorizing.	35:05
	And second that of generalizing.	35:09
	Maybe both.	35:12
	We categorize when we arrange the material	35:16
	with which we are dealing	35:20
	in classes, or families, or divisions	35:23
	for the purposes of grouping like data together.	35:29
	When the arranging is done scientifically, objectively,	35:36
	with a readiness to correct errors,	35:41
	to clarify the criteria,	35:45
	then categorizing serves a useful and invaluable purpose.	35:48
	But if the approach to the data is emotional,	35:56
	or hate bound or time-worn,	36:03
	then the result may be injurious, wicked, baneful,	36:08
	especially if the data be people,	36:14
	other human beings.	36:19
	I remember as a boy in Scotland,	36:22
	hearing any person of Scottish birth,	36:25
	I mean not of Scottish birth dismissed in one sentence.	36:29
	"He's a foreigner."	36:35
	(speaks in foreign language) which being interpreted is	36:38
	"He's from another country, trip him."	36:43
	Bitterness touches the malediction	36:51
	when religion enters the picture.	36:54
	For example, Belfast.	36:57
	And once heard, one cannot forget the words	37:01
	which Shakespeare put into the mouth of Shylock.	37:04
	"I am a Jew.	37:09
	Hath not a Jew eyes?	37:13
	Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,	37:17
	senses, affections, passions?"	37:22
	And time fails me to tell of blacks and Indians,	37:29
	of ghetto children and city slums and rural squalor	37:33
	where youngsters are not only handicapped,	37:38
	but categorized to their disadvantage.	37:41
	It's interesting that there's one chapter in the Bible	37:46
	where Jesus categorizes,	37:49
	to the disadvantage of the Pharisees.	37:52
	The Pharisees who were the rabbis	37:57
	to whom he himself was beholden	38:00
	in the synagogue at Nazareth.	38:05
	In Matthew 23, the phrase	38:09
	"Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites."	38:11
	is repeated seven times	38:19
	in a blistering attack	38:23
	on the liberal, relevant teachers of the Jewish faith.	38:26
	C.G. Montefiore, a Jewish scholar	38:33
	who has written seriously on Jesus and his ministry	38:37
	refuses to believe that Jesus said all	38:41
	that is ascribed to him in that chapter.	38:44
	Jesus was righteously angry,	38:49
	and rightly so with individual Pharisees.	38:52
	But Montefiore rejects as authentic	38:56
	such undiscriminating abuse	38:59
	of an entire class.	39:04
	He calls Matthew 23 the most un-Christian chapter	39:07
	in the gospels,	39:12
	and suggests that some editor	39:14
	who didn't like Jews	39:17
	strung all these denunciatory verses together.	39:20
	Well, whatever the truth may be in interpreting	39:26
	"Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites."	39:29
	it's worth remembering	39:34
	that it was two Pharisees who buried Jesus	39:37
	when his own male followers had fled.	39:44
	So much for the first danger,	39:50
	that of classifying individual human beings in a category,	39:53
	especially if the intent or the consequence	40:00
	is injurious to them	40:05
	and ultimately, harmful to our inner selves.	40:08
	The other danger is to generalize in a bad sense,	40:16
	to derive from too few particulars	40:22
	a general conception or principle.	40:25
	I was surprised,	40:30
	caught off balance by that character	40:32
	who held the divinity school door open for me.	40:35
	That was because I had typed him	40:39
	as an academic bum,	40:42
	and a no-good bum at that.	40:45
	But no, I must not go to the opposite extreme	40:49
	and decide that the ragged, unwashed,	40:55
	unkempt scholars on our campus	40:58
	are angels in disguise	41:02
	or other regarding camouflaged followers of our Lord.	41:06
	Generalization may well be	41:12
	as harmful a deduction as categorization.	41:14
	Look again at Jesus' treatment	41:20
	of the woman taken in adultery.	41:22
	How would law and order prevail?	41:26
	How would juries and judges be chosen,	41:32
	if all men took literally	41:37
	and made a general principle	41:41
	for our organized social life of the decision,	41:43
	"Let him that is without sin cast the first stone."	41:47
	It would be the end of stoning to death for adultery.	41:55
	It would be the end of capital punishment.	42:01
	It would be the end of common law.	42:05
	But Jesus, by his comment	42:09
	had sought to move the question	42:12
	from the judicial sphere	42:15
	to the moral province within each man.	42:19
	What still staggers me	42:24
	is that they all went away,	42:27
	one by one, beginning with the elders.	42:30
	Several manuscripts add,	42:36
	"convicted by their own consciences."	42:38
	So much for generalization, the second danger.	42:44
	Someone has said,	42:50
	"All generalizations are wrong,	42:52
	including this one."	42:57
	Now it's not my desire this morning	43:01
	to suggest that I've said the definitive word	43:04
	on categorization or generalization.	43:07
	I just tried to think out loud with you	43:11
	about the conclusions drawn from my contact	43:15
	with that student,	43:19
	and from the story read is our morning lesson.	43:21
	There are person to person confrontations,	43:26
	and these are person to person confrontations	43:31
	met with in daily life	43:37
	and the life of the first century in Palestine,	43:40
	and the life of the 20th century,	43:44
	in an American university.	43:48
	Now let me read to you two printed items	43:52
	which have crossed my desk.	43:54
	The first is from the alumni magazine,	43:58
	which Amherst College,	44:01
	where I taught for 14 years before coming to Duke,	44:04
	which Amherst College sends its alumni.	44:09
	It's a letter from the member,	44:11
	a member of the class of 1928,	44:13
	who lives in Providence, Rhode Island,	44:17
	and was sent to the editor sometime last year,	44:21
	and this is entirely quotation.	44:25
	"Some the published pieties of my contemporaries,	44:30
	give me what we termed 45 years ago,	44:34
	a swift pain in the butt.	44:38
	These aging articles tend to forget who and what we were.	44:42
	My class was one which killed the honor system.	44:50
	Could it be that some of our members actually cheated?	44:54
	We first assembled on campus	44:59
	in the fall of 1924, 220 strong.	45:01
	Four years later at commencement,	45:08
	only 125 of us were left.	45:10
	In other words, more than 40% of the class	45:14
	consisted of college dropouts, flunkouts, and cop-outs.	45:18
	Yet that does not prevent us from wagging our gray heads	45:24
	and complaining young people nowadays	45:27
	don't appreciate their educational opportunities.	45:30
	Apparently, neither did we.	45:34
	We forget our vicious fraternity system.	45:38
	Which house was Charlie Drew,	45:42
	which house was Bill Hasty?	45:45
	There wasn't a fraternity on campus with guts enough	45:48
	to pledge a black.	45:52
	Jews got in by mistake.	45:54
	But 1971, we're all experts on Afro American problems.	45:59
	Anyone who calls us racists get a punch in the mouth.	46:04
	Our behavior disgusted our elders,	46:09
	we danced vulgarly and petted promiscuously,	46:11
	we boasted of our sexual prowess.	46:15
	Yet to hear us tell it now,	46:19
	we all first met our wives in church	46:21
	and climbed onto the connubial couch	46:24
	in a state of extreme innocence.	46:26
	We were in college during prohibition.	46:31
	Most of us drank,	46:34
	which meant we risked physical damage.	46:36
	Anyone wanting a bad trip should try wood alcohol,	46:40
	which meant we broke the law,	46:46
	not only college regulations and local and state statutes,	46:48
	but federal laws as well.	46:52
	Whenever we bought a bottle or bellied up	46:55
	to the bar at Doc Crawford's,	46:58
	Kid Laplant's or The Elementary Inn,	46:59
	we aided and enriched	47:03
	the Connecticut Valley gangster equivalents	47:05
	of Al Capone and Dutch Schultz.	47:07
	But none of this stops us from parading	47:11
	in front of today's student body,	47:13
	as the probable inventors of law and order.	47:16
	We never broke anything in our life,	47:20
	or, well, maybe a couple of traffic violations,	47:22
	but we got them quashed.	47:26
	I suspect my generation talks and acts that way it does	47:29
	because it hates the young	47:35
	principally because they are young.	47:39
	We no longer are.	47:44
	Besides, the young are different.	47:46
	They fancy blue jeans.	47:48
	We sported plus fours,	47:50
	the plussier, the better.	47:52
	They experiment with drugs.	47:54
	Why can't they stick to cigarettes,	47:57
	martinis, and tranquilizers like sensible folk?	47:58
	They wear long hair.	48:03
	We know long hair is evil.	48:06
	The young are involved.	48:09
	We seldom were.	48:12
	Sacco Vanzetti?	48:15
	Who were they?	48:18
	Oh a couple of wops who got electrocuted somewhere.	48:19
	The young are knowledgeable.	48:24
	We gathered our news from the front and sport pages	48:26
	of the Springfield Republican,	48:29
	Springfield Union and occasional New York paper.	48:31
	We listened to the World Series on the radio.	48:34
	Never did we experienced major sport events	48:38
	in our living rooms visually, immediately.	48:41
	Neither did we witness war, assassination, disaster,	48:45
	the sordidness of of political conventions,	48:49
	the slyness of public officials,	48:52
	the stupidity and cruelty of society in general,	48:55
	sights which today's collegians view again and again.	48:59
	Even so, the young seem to retain	49:04
	some remnants of idealism.	49:10
	We are thorough-going materialists.	49:14
	Perhaps it was the depression,	49:18
	which made us so hard nosed and avaricious.	49:20
	We resolved never to be poor.	49:23
	We worked, saved our money,	49:26
	cultivated the right club,	49:29
	helped to build the right people, joined the right clubs,	49:32
	moved into the right suburbs.	49:35
	'I can truthfully say we have no racial problems	49:38
	in my community.'	49:40
	No blacks either.	49:43
	Judged by middle America standards,	49:47
	today's young people are a pretty foul bunch.	49:49
	So I submit were we.	49:54
	Yet we like to think we turned out well.	49:58
	We considered ourselves community leaders,	50:01
	defenders of morality, and supporters of the establishment.	50:04
	More than that,	50:08
	most of us contribute to the alumni fund.	50:10
	I suggest that present undergraduates	50:14
	can turn out equally well.	50:17
	Admittedly, they do so against frightening odds.	50:21
	Our parents gave us the gift of a worldwide depression	50:26
	and the makings of a second world war.	50:29
	We're leaving the young what?	50:33
	The legacy of a divided nation,	50:35
	the makings of a third world war,	50:39
	and the Hydrogenic means for destroying a planet	50:43
	which we have despoiled.	50:46
	No matter how much we dislike the young,	50:50
	the least we can do	50:55
	is to wish them luck."	50:58
	The other that I want to read just part of it,	51:03
	is a surprising editorial which appeared in the Chronicle.	51:08
	Let's leave it surprising.	51:17
	Dated November 5th, 1971,	51:19
	welcoming the parents to a weekend on campus.	51:22
	It's entitled "A Letter to Parents"	51:26
	and concludes "love, and peace,	51:29
	The Chronicle Edit Council."	51:33
	Here are just a few excerpts.	51:34
	"Dear parents, welcome to Duke.	51:37
	We hope you enjoy your weekend here	51:40
	with your sons and daughters.	51:42
	For many of you, this is the first time	51:45
	you've seen your kids since they've been at Duke,	51:46
	make the best of it.	51:50
	It can be a frustrating weekend,	51:52
	spent on superficialities, campus tours,	51:54
	meetings with your children's friends and roommates.	51:58
	A football game,	52:01
	Saturday dinner, somewhere in Durham,	52:03
	and finally farewells.	52:06
	What you make of it beyond, this is up to you,	52:09
	and to us, your kids.	52:12
	You can learn a lot.	52:16
	You're visiting us in our home territory,	52:18
	in the Duke atmosphere that consists of the many things	52:21
	that have changed us since you sent us away to college.	52:24
	Here, you can have some idea of the forces	52:29
	that have been shaping us since we last slept	52:31
	under your roofs.	52:33
	That way you might be more inclined	52:36
	to understand our new strangeness	52:37
	the next time we come home to you.	52:40
	The new difference in some of us	52:43
	that maybe makes home a little harder for us to live in	52:46
	than it used to be.	52:50
	First, try not to be too shocked if we look different.	52:52
	Some of us have more hair in more places	52:55
	than we used to have.	52:59
	So what?	53:00
	Some more of us wear blue jeans more often	53:03
	and make up less often	53:05
	than we did when we were at home with you.	53:07
	And yes, there's a lack of sleep.	53:09
	You see bulging around and around our eyes.	53:11
	Beneath the hair and denim and everything else,	53:15
	none of which goes very deep,	53:19
	we're still the people	53:22
	that used to live with you all the time.	53:24
	But right now we're going through that stage	53:28
	between childhood and adulthood called college.	53:31
	We're not children anymore	53:37
	because here we are free	53:40
	from many of the responsibilities we had	53:41
	to you, our parents, when we lived at home.	53:43
	And we can't be called adults yet,	53:48
	even though we college students can now vote and get drafted	53:50
	because we won't be forced to hassle	53:53
	the real world you live and work in	53:56
	until we leave the protective womb of the university.	53:59
	What do you want for us?	54:04
	The best?	54:07
	We hope you'll talk to us in terms	54:08
	not only of what you think the best is,	54:11
	but what we might think it is also.	54:14
	We're both important.	54:18
	Neither of us is right or wrong.	54:20
	We hope this weekend serves to bring us all together.	54:25
	Whether we happen to agree on particulars or not,	54:29
	if we try hard,	54:32
	we might get to know each other a little better.	54:34
	Love and peace.	54:40
	The Chronicle Edit Council."	54:43
	Unexpected goodness, in the Chronicle.	54:47
	Perhaps we should ask that Amherst alumnus	54:54
	of the class of 1928 to sit down with the editorial staff	54:56
	of the Chronicle.	55:00
	Though there's a 45 year gap between them,	55:02
	they'd understand each other.	55:06
	And we within our religious tradition should be anxious	55:09
	to see beneath the surface of the person	55:13
	who is more disguised than he is revealed	55:18
	by his sartorial non-conformity,	55:22
	and his strange thatch.	55:25
	For as God warned His prophet Samuel,	55:29
	man looks on the outward appearance,	55:32
	but the Lord looketh in the heart.	55:36
	And from the heart there comes	55:40
	so often, unexpected goodness.	55:43
	Let us pray.	55:50
	Oh God, keep surprising this old world,	55:53
	especially with goodness in out of the way places,	55:58
	and from unexpected people.	56:03
	Be we the receivers or the givers,	56:06
	Amen.	56:12
	(solemn organ music)	56:16
	(singing drowned out by organ)	56:45
	(solemn organ music)	58:56
	♪ I am alpha and omega ♪	1:01:04
	♪ The beginning and the end ♪	1:01:11
	♪ He that overcometh ♪	1:01:21
	♪ Shall inherit all things ♪	1:01:24
	♪ And I will be his God ♪	1:01:31
	♪ And he ♪	1:01:39
	♪ shall be my son ♪	1:01:44
	♪ Behold what manner of love ♪	1:02:11
	♪ The Father has bestowed upon us ♪	1:02:19
	♪ That we should be called ♪	1:02:30
	♪ The sons of God ♪	1:02:37
	♪ Therefore the world knowest not us ♪	1:02:47
	♪ Because it knows him not ♪	1:02:55
	♪ Beloved ♪	1:03:14
	♪ Now are we the sons of God ♪	1:03:17
	♪ And it doth not yet appear ♪	1:03:23
	♪ What we shall be ♪	1:03:28
	♪ But we know that when He shall appear ♪	1:03:34
	♪ We shall be like Him ♪	1:03:41
	♪ We shall be like Him ♪	1:03:45
	♪ For we shall see Him ♪	1:03:52
	♪ As He is ♪	1:04:01
	♪ Now ♪	1:04:11

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Unexpected Goodness" (January 16, 1972)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4bp0242n

Date:

January 16, 1972

Speaker:

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

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0602
ref6407_u3f
uachapelsermaud
duke:628212
dcrau002589
ark:/87924/r4bp0242n
1d6ff1a2-dee0-4893-b534-3cdadce7d41a

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

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This material is made available for research, scholarship, and private study. Copyright in this material has not been transferred to Duke University. For reuses of this material beyond those permitted by fair use or otherwise allowed under the Copyright Act, please see our page on copyright and citations: https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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James T. Cleland - "Unexpected Goodness" (January 16, 1972)

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1. James T. Cleland - "Unexpected Goodness" (January 16, 1972)

Duke University Archives

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James T. Cleland - "Unexpected Goodness" (January 16, 1972)

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Duke University Archives

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