Robert M. Blackburn - "Our Earthen Vessels" Installation of Robert T. Young (November 18, 1973)

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	(ceremonious music)	0:04
	(choir singing)	0:18
	(choir singing crescendos)	0:56
	(ceremonious music)	1:19
	(trumpets begin)	1:57
	(ceremonious music intensifies)	2:21
	(ceremonious music crescendos)	3:51
	(ceremonious music crescendos)	5:19
	(choir begins)	5:25
	(ceremonious music crescendos)	6:08
Reverend	Be seated.	6:19
	As we are bowed in awe before God,	6:32
	let us offer our prayer of confession.	6:37
	Our heavenly father,	6:44
	who by your love has made us	6:46
	and through your love has kept us	6:49
	and in your love would make us perfect.	6:53
	We humbly confess that we have not loved you	6:57
	with all our heart and soul and mind and strength,	7:01
	and that we have not loved one another	7:07
	as Christ has loved us.	7:10
	Your life is within our souls,	7:14
	but our selfishness has hindered you.	7:17
	We have not lived by faith.	7:21
	We have resisted your spirit.	7:24
	We have neglected your inspirations.	7:27
	Forgive what we have been,	7:31
	help us to amend what we are and in your spirit	7:34
	direct what we shall be,	7:39
	that you may come in the full glory of your creation	7:42
	in us and in all men through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	7:47
	Amen.	7:53
	The word of God comes as gracious forgiveness.	8:11
	Though your sins be as scarlet,	8:17
	they shall be white as snow.	8:20
	Though they be red like crimson,	8:24
	they shall become as wool.	8:29
	To God be our praise.	8:34
	To God be our prayer.	8:38
	Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,	8:43
	thy kingdom come,	8:49
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	8:52
	Give us this day our daily bread	8:56
	and forgive us our trespasses.	9:00
	As we forgive those who trespass against us	9:03
	and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.	9:07
	For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory	9:12
	forever.	9:18
	Amen.	9:20
	(ceremonial music)	9:23
	(ceremonial music)	9:56
Pastor	Therefore having this ministry	11:54
	by the mercy of God,	11:58
	we do not lose heart.	12:00
	We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways.	12:04
	We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word,	12:09
	but by the open statement of the truth,	12:14
	we would commend ourselves to every man's conscience	12:18
	in the sight of God.	12:22
	And even if our gospel is veiled,	12:24
	it is veiled only to those who are perishing.	12:28
	In their case, the god of this world	12:33
	has blinded the minds of the unbelievers,	12:36
	to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel	12:41
	of the glory of Christ,	12:44
	which is the likeness of God.	12:46
	For what we preach is not ourselves,	12:50
	but Jesus Christ as Lord,	12:54
	with ourselves as servants for Jesus' sake,	12:58
	for it is the God who said,	13:03
	let light shine out of darkness,	13:05
	who has shown in our hearts to give the light	13:09
	of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.	13:14
	But we have this treasure in earthen vessels	13:24
	to show that the transcendent power belongs to God	13:31
	and not to us.	13:37
	Amen.	13:41
	Here endeth the reading of the lesson.	13:43
	(ceremonial music)	13:47
Pastor	Let us affirm our faith.	14:29
	We believe in God who has created and is creating,	14:32
	who has come in the true man, Jesus,	14:38
	to reconcile and make new,	14:42
	who works in us and others by his spirit.	14:45
	We trust him.	14:50
	He calls us to be in his church to celebrate his presence,	14:52
	to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil,	14:59
	to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,	15:06
	our judge and our hope.	15:10
	In life, in death,	15:13
	in life beyond death, God is with us.	15:16
	We are not alone.	15:21
	Thanks be to God.	15:23
	The Lord be with you.	15:27
Congregation	And with your spirit.	15:29
Pastor	Let us pray.	15:31
	We come before thee, oh Lord, with thanksgiving for life	15:45
	and the fullness of life, which thou has given to us.	15:53
	Make us appreciative, joyful people.	16:00
	We come with petitions for this congregation,	16:08
	give to each one and to all, what is most needful.	16:13
	Comfort the sorrowful, strengthen the weak,	16:22
	encourage the hurt,	16:28
	relieve the angry,	16:32
	renew the distressed	16:35
	and lead us all to follow more mature life.	16:39
	Bring peace to our world, Oh God,	16:47
	bring peace with justice in our nation.	16:52
	Bring peace with hope for the Middle East	16:58
	and Southeast Asia.	17:03
	Bring peace with service and joy to each life.	17:07
	We come with petitions for this service,	17:17
	the minister to be installed, the ministry on this campus.	17:22
	And we offer also our prayers of blessing	17:31
	for this university.	17:36
	In Jesus' name we pray.	17:40
	Amen.	17:44
	We are pleased to have in our pulpit today,	17:55
	Bishop Robert M. Blackburn,	17:59
	the resident Bishop of the Raleigh area	18:05
	of the United Methodist church.	18:08
	We welcome him to our campus and to this service.	18:12
Bishop	This is a very important and happy occasion	18:30
	that brings us here today.	18:34
	Individually and collectively,	18:37
	we come to extend our greetings to Bob Young	18:39
	and to pray God's richest blessings upon him	18:43
	as he assumes the significant duties	18:46
	of the minister to Duke University.	18:52
	It is also a day of great meaning to this university,	18:55
	a milestone.	18:58
	As we come to install	19:00
	another minister to this chapel and to this community,	19:03
	a ministry which has had far reaching influence	19:08
	across the years,	19:11
	to the lives of countless thousands of students,	19:13
	messages that have gone out over this world from this pulpit	19:17
	and from this ministry here.	19:22
	A college and university campus is an exciting place to be.	19:27
	New ideas are born there.	19:32
	Changes are being brought to pass	19:36
	because of what happens at a place like this.	19:38
	New motivations that are changing	19:43
	the whole force of the world happen on a college campus.	19:45
	I heard the other day of a man	19:50
	who was a new college president.	19:51
	Someone asked him how he was getting along	19:55
	and his reply was, "I sleep like a baby.	19:58
	I wake up every three hours and start crying."	20:03
	Well, I'm sure that the duties of Mr. Young	20:08
	are strenuous and demanding.	20:11
	I hope, however, not so much	20:14
	that they shall be experiences of anguish and of tears,	20:15
	but a source of great joy to him	20:20
	and to all who received his ministry.	20:22
	This day also affords us an opportunity	20:27
	to think about the place of religion in our lives	20:29
	and more especially, the Christian faith	20:33
	and its impact upon a place of learning like this.	20:36
	Back in the colonial days,	20:41
	when they established a new town in New England,	20:42
	they would find the four corners of the township	20:47
	and they would draw diagonal lines across.	20:51
	And where these lines bisected,	20:55
	there was a center of the town.	20:58
	And they called it the centering of the town.	21:01
	And they put at this spot, their church.	21:05
	Now,	21:10
	when the schematic design of this beautiful campus was set,	21:12
	apparently the same purpose was there.	21:16
	Here, at the heart of a great place of learning,	21:20
	this beautiful sanctuary,	21:23
	surrounded by resident halls, by beautiful gardens	21:26
	by classrooms and by a great medical center.	21:33
	Here at the center of it all, this beautiful cathedral.	21:37
	One would hope that out of this would come	21:41
	the kind of ministry that would be worthy	21:44
	of the great and high calling of God.	21:48
	To read the writings of St. Paul,	21:52
	we are always impressed by the sense of challenge	21:54
	and excitement that he had about his ministry.	21:58
	He seemed to have a thrill at the opportunity of preaching	22:03
	and proclaiming the word.	22:06
	And writing to his Corinthian friends,	22:09
	the passage, which has just been read for us,	22:12
	he talks about the great spiritual values.	22:15
	About those things which come from beyond us.	22:18
	That come from God.	22:22
	And he speaks to them as the treasures.	22:24
	And he says,	22:26
	"But we have this treasure in earthen vessels	22:28
	to show that the transcendent power belongs to God."	22:34
	Paul Tillich in his little book, The Protestant Era,	22:42
	says that without a transcendent element,	22:47
	the ultimate meaning of history cannot be maintained.	22:50
	Now they seem to be talking about the same thing,	22:56
	that beyond us are the great and high and holy principles	23:00
	of our faith.	23:04
	They serve for us as a treasure of life.	23:06
	And they're brought to meaning and to actuality	23:10
	through the lives of people, through programs,	23:14
	through buildings, through which God becomes real to us.	23:17
	And so we would hope that sounding from this pulpit,	23:23
	emanating from the office of this ministry	23:27
	that interpreted through the program of this place	23:32
	shall come to pass a message and a ministry	23:36
	that will ring true, and will make God more real	23:40
	in the lives of all that are touched by it.	23:44
	Some years ago,	23:49
	I remember reading about the beautiful carillon	23:50
	that is placed up in the tower here.	23:53
	I have not verified this,	23:56
	but the story that I read said that these bells	23:58
	were made over in Holland, brought here to this place	24:01
	and installed.	24:05
	And after they were set in place,	24:07
	two experts from Holland came over to tune these bells	24:09
	to the terrain in which they were situated.	24:13
	They could not be tuned at the point of manufacture,	24:18
	but here to fit into the surroundings,	24:21
	the rolling hills and the woodlands	24:24
	of Eastern North Carolina,	24:26
	so that they would sound forth in the way	24:29
	for which they were made.	24:32
	One would hope that in something of the same realism	24:35
	and relevancy, that the gospel of Christ	24:37
	shall be tuned to this place.	24:41
	And he shall become real because of the ministry	24:44
	of his word here.	24:48
	Life is profound, isn't it?	24:52
	Deep are our needs.	24:55
	Consuming are the desires, which always obsess us.	24:58
	Visionaries sometimes for the longings that we have,	25:03
	the things we want to do and to become.	25:06
	And we find ourselves as creatures of need	25:09
	for the kind of ministry which should come	25:12
	from this kind of place.	25:15
	For one thing,	25:18
	I think we're anxious for someone to speak to us about God,	25:19
	to make him real to us.	25:24
	Norman Cousins, some two or three decades ago,	25:27
	wrote a very provocative book entitled,	25:31
	Who Speaks For Man.	25:35
	And indeed someone should speak for us	25:39
	in a very intriguing idea,	25:41
	but far more important is that,	25:44
	is the question, that I'm sure in one way or another,	25:46
	is in each heart here, who speaks for God?	25:49
	Who speaks for the spiritual realities	25:54
	by which we find our fulfillment and our abundance in life.	25:57
	The Bible seems to reveal to us that God does speak to us.	26:03
	He desires to speak to us.	26:08
	And the Bible also indicates that he speaks to us	26:10
	through people.	26:13
	Through his prophets who stood long ago and said,	26:15
	"Thus saith the Lord."	26:18
	Who came with an element of authenticity	26:22
	to say to people, "This is the way of the Lord,	26:24
	walk ye in it."	26:29
	And we find our great answers about God	26:31
	in the testimony of people who have found him to be real.	26:35
	Now, I think our pursuit of God	26:41
	could easily be divided into two realms.	26:42
	There is God as he really is, the apriori,	26:45
	the before, the creator.	26:49
	God, as he really is.	26:51
	And then there's God as we understand him.	26:54
	And all of our religious pursuit,	26:59
	our theology, our preaching, our teaching,	27:02
	our devotional life, is an effort somehow or another	27:05
	to bring these two closer together, God, as he is,	27:09
	and God, as we understand him,	27:11
	and hoping that we can come closer and closer together	27:14
	and reconcile the two, so that as we come	27:18
	to the realism of God,	27:22
	we come to understand him as he really is.	27:24
	Now we have a lot of obstacles here.	27:30
	We have our traditions,	27:33
	some of them quite conventional and provincial.	27:36
	We have our theology,	27:39
	some of them quiet in conflict with each other.	27:40
	If you do not believe, just look sometime at the church page	27:43
	on Saturday, your newspaper,	27:47
	and look at the sermon topics	27:50
	that Christian ministers preach.	27:51
	What a variety there are.	27:55
	And some as though they were conflicting with each other.	27:57
	And sometimes these differences become our obstacles.	28:00
	Or sometimes there's our denial in our materialism.	28:03
	But always it is our desire in the Christian faith	28:06
	somehow to bring closer together God, as he is,	28:09
	and God, as we understand him.	28:13
	And is our persistent desire	28:16
	to have someone come and to speak for God and say to us,	28:17
	thus saith the Lord.	28:22
	Well, Tera said one time that God made man in his own image	28:26
	and man is forever trying to return the compliment.	28:33
	Well, in our thoughts about God,	28:38
	so often we tried to bring him down to our level.	28:40
	Or sometimes they become quite hazy	28:43
	as a man who prayed one time, oh God,	28:45
	if there is a God,	28:48
	save my soul if I have a soul.	28:51
	And that's how hazy many of us are	28:56
	in our understanding of him.	28:58
	And so it is out of this kind of groping and searching	29:00
	that we seek for someone to come and to speak to us	29:03
	about the reality and the truth of God.	29:08
	As Alfred North Whitehead used to say,	29:10
	"God is the principle of concretion. He is real and actual.	29:13
	And is our pursuit in our desire to make him real to us."	29:19
	I believe that we are living in a time and an age	29:25
	when the hungers are great.	29:30
	I read one time of an ancient school in Rome	29:33
	when it was in it's finest flower.	29:36
	When the professors	29:39
	used to come strolling into the lecture hall	29:39
	in their long robes and the students would stand.	29:42
	And he would stand at the podium	29:45
	and there was a great formality	29:46
	about the entrance of the professor.	29:48
	And this particular class,	29:51
	so eager to know more about the spiritual values of life,	29:52
	as their great master came in,	29:56
	they would stand and call out,	29:58
	"Tell us of the soul. Tell us of the soul."	30:01
	I believe whether we recognize it or not,	30:08
	there are many that are saying that today.	30:13
	Tell us of the soul.	30:15
	And so we need someone in earthen vessel,	30:18
	a man, a person, a choir, a building,	30:21
	that tells us something about God	30:26
	and satisfies the deep longings of our souls.	30:30
	But then also we want someone to tell us about persons.	30:33
	About mankind.	30:38
	And more particular, someone to tell us about ourselves.	30:40
	To recognize the person that we are	30:44
	and to believe in us and to understand us	30:48
	and to seek us out.	30:52
	Sometime this past summer we had, as our speaker, in one of	30:54
	our occasions down at Methodist college,	30:58
	William Holmes Borders,	31:02
	a pastor of the Wheat Street Baptist Church	31:06
	in Atlanta, Georgia.	31:07
	A black minister, who for 30 years	31:09
	has made his impact upon that city.	31:11
	Not only established a great congregation,	31:13
	but a housing center, a whole community of faith.	31:16
	And in the material that was sent to introduce him,	31:20
	it told about his ministry and all the things	31:23
	that he had done.	31:25
	And then it came to the end of it.	31:28
	In this concluding sentence it said,	31:30
	"William Holmes Borders is somebody."	31:34
	Well, those of us who heard him,	31:41
	his great preaching and his dynamic personality	31:43
	concluded that he was and is somebody.	31:46
	But everybody is somebody, isn't that right?	31:53
	And out of our anonymity in life,	31:57
	out of a large community such as we live in,	31:59
	even here at this campus,	32:02
	we want to feel that there is some degree	32:04
	to which we are singled out	32:07
	and we count and we're somebody.	32:09
	And we want somebody to understand us.	32:11
	In The Baltimore Sun a few years ago,	32:16
	there was a little article entitled,	32:18
	Lost In The Shuffle.	32:20
	And it told about a man who had been hired as a new janitor	32:22
	in a great department store.	32:27
	On the first day that he came to work,	32:30
	they sent him down to clean up a basement	32:31
	in the building across the way,	32:34
	but somehow in finding his way underneath the street	32:36
	and into the building where he was supposed to go,	32:40
	he lost his way,	32:43
	and he ended up in the basement of a rival department store.	32:46
	And there, all day long, he did a dandy cleanup job.	32:51
	But the sad part of this story is	32:57
	that nobody in the place where he was hired,	33:00
	asked where he was.	33:03
	Nobody in the store where he was not supposed to be	33:07
	asked who he was,	33:12
	and nobody asked what he was doing.	33:16
	And that's the way his day ended,	33:21
	completely lost in the shuffle	33:23
	and the bigness of life.	33:24
	And there are times, I'm sure,	33:27
	when lots of us feel that way.	33:29
	Moving in big realms, caught up in the community life,	33:31
	just one of many.	33:36
	There's a story you remember back in the book of Samuel,	33:38
	where Absalom has the battle with his father,	33:41
	King David.	33:44
	And Joab, who is the general	33:46
	of the armies of David's forces,	33:48
	is wiser than the generals of Absalom's,	33:50
	and engages Absalom's soldiers	33:53
	over into the forest of Ephraim,	33:55
	rather than out in the open	33:58
	where Absalom's men were trained to fight.	33:59
	And there proved the ruin and the fall of Absalom's forces,	34:03
	because there they were lost in the woods.	34:08
	They'd never known how to fight in the woods.	34:09
	And it says there in the book of 2 Samuel,	34:13
	"And the forest devoured more than the sword."	34:17
	Well it's symbolic. Something of our day.	34:24
	In the largeness of life,	34:28
	in the anonymity of the kind of community life that we have,	34:29
	it's so easy to be devoured in the crowds.	34:33
	But I think if we were honest with ourselves,	34:37
	that all of us would say, "Someone needs to speak for me,	34:41
	for the person."	34:46
	Well, we want someone to speak for God.	34:49
	We want someone to speak for the person, for us.	34:52
	Then I believe we want someone to speak for ideals.	34:56
	For dreams and for visions.	35:02
	For something that is beyond our life, that challenges us.	35:05
	The great movements of our day have been fulfilled by men,	35:10
	who, like Martin Luther King, said, "I have a dream."	35:15
	and the fulfillment of that dream and those ideals	35:20
	and those aspirations,	35:23
	because there was a man who was motivated by these ideals.	35:24
	Dr. Harold Bosley, who for a period of time	35:30
	was the Dean of the divinity school here.	35:33
	Many of you know him,	35:35
	one of the great preachers of America,	35:37
	tells of receiving a letter one time from a young man.	35:39
	In this letter,	35:44
	he seeks to establish his faith in the goodness of life	35:45
	and of his fellow man.	35:49
	And he opens this letter with the sentence,	35:52
	"Pardon my idealism but,"	35:55
	And then he goes on to tell of his great affirmations,	36:01
	about the goodness of life.	36:04
	and Dr. Bosley says,	36:07
	"Why should we have to apologize for idealism?"	36:08
	I would hope that as we come to a place like this,	36:14
	and as America's youth come to learn,	36:20
	and as they join here in a faculty of some of the wisest	36:24
	and most learned people of the world,	36:27
	that ever lifted up before them would be	36:30
	the high ideals and the aspirations of our faith.	36:33
	It leads me to say then, in this concluding moment,	36:38
	do we want someone to speak to us about hope?	36:42
	The transcending,	36:47
	all of the shoddy depressing and despairing things of life	36:48
	as we see it today, there is hope for us.	36:54
	There's hope for mankind.	36:59
	That's what the gospel means. The gospel, the good news.	37:02
	The glad tidings that will proclaim at advent season	37:06
	that God acted to bring to this world some hope.	37:10
	That transcending all of our foolishness	37:14
	and our spent lives and our mistakes,	37:17
	is the great and ultimate purpose of God.	37:20
	From this pulpit, there needs to be sounded that message.	37:25
	One day a speaker was invited to a woman's club.	37:31
	The president got up to introduce him and she said,	37:34
	"We're delighted to have this famous historian	37:39
	and world traveler with us.	37:42
	And he's going to speak to us on the world situation	37:45
	and he's promised to leave all the ugly things out."	37:50
	Well, I can sympathize with that lady.	37:55
	Sometimes we want someone to leave the ugly things out	37:58
	and talk about the things of beauty and of hope	38:02
	and the transcendent powers and transcendent purposes	38:06
	in which God moves into this world	38:09
	and leads us beyond that which we are.	38:12
	We have this treasure then in earthen vessels,	38:17
	in our ministry.	38:21
	In a place,	38:23
	in a song.	38:26
	And here to proclaim the transcendent power of God.	38:28
	He becomes real to us.	38:33
	Is there something of the element of devotion, of sacrifice,	38:34
	of complete commitment to our cause and to our Christ?	38:39
	Many of us, I'm sure have admired Albert Schweitzer,	38:45
	the great example of life, which he has been.	38:49
	Those of you who are theologians	38:54
	perhaps would differ with his theology as many did.	38:56
	And there is an account of a time when a theologian	39:01
	was disagreeing with a particular	39:03
	theological treatise	39:06
	that had been written by Dr. Schweitzer,	39:07
	but then after his criticism and his differences	39:11
	with the great missionary doctor theologian,	39:15
	he sums it up saying,	39:19
	"Perhaps we should judge Schweitzer, not by his words,	39:20
	but by his deeds, not by his book, but by his discipleship,	39:26
	not by his theological concepts,	39:34
	but by the fact that he took up the cross of Christ	39:38
	and went into darkest Africa." Amen.	39:43
	Not by his theological concepts alone,	39:48
	not by those ideas with which we may disagree	39:53
	but by the fact that here was a servant of God,	39:57
	who took up the cross of Christ and proclaimed him.	40:00
	But we have then this treasure in earthen vessels	40:05
	that the transcendent power of God might be made known.	40:10
	Let us pray.	40:18
	Oh, God, our father,	40:21
	thou who has given to us life and all of its meanings,	40:23
	thou who has called us to the proclaiming of thy word,	40:28
	make of us, we pray, instruments	40:33
	that will be worthy	40:37
	of the high and holy calling that is ours	40:39
	through Christ, our Lord.	40:43
	Amen.	40:46
	(indistinct)	40:59
Reverend	Mr Young, please come to the alter.	41:06
Bishop	Mr. Young,	41:58
	I have appointed you minister to the university.	41:59
	You have been entrusted with the responsibilities	42:04
	of this office.	42:07
	We look to you now for leadership of the religious life	42:10
	in the Duke University community.	42:14
	We need a preacher of the word to proclaim God's message	42:17
	of truth and hope.	42:21
	To speak to us of justice and righteousness and mercy.	42:24
	We need a pastor to care for us when we are broken	42:28
	and when we are whole,	42:31
	When we are hurt and when we rejoice.	42:34
	We need a priest to celebrate God's love and word	42:37
	and sacrament.	42:41
	To these privileges and to others you have been called	42:44
	in this university setting	42:50
	where Eruditio et Religio is our motto,	42:51
	we look to you to lead us and serve us with wisdom,	42:55
	with integrity, with faithfulness, and with compassion.	43:00
	Through your very presence, your preaching, your prayers,	43:07
	and your service,	43:12
	may we be brought to higher levels of spiritual insight,	43:13
	to deeper moments of personal piety and to more helpful acts	43:17
	of human kindness.	43:23
	I am convinced of your commitment to God	43:25
	and to the ministry within Duke University.	43:28
	I hereby declare you, Robert Terry Young,	43:33
	installed as minister to the university.	43:37
Robert	President Sanford with the help of almighty God,	43:47
	upon whose grace I am dependent	43:54
	for both wisdom and strength.	43:57
	And with the assistance and support of my wife and children	44:01
	and other members of this university community,	44:06
	I respond to you with the commitment of myself,	44:10
	my whole person, my time, my energies, my abilities	44:14
	to the task to which you have appointed,	44:21
	and now install me	44:24
	and to which, I believe, God has called me.	44:27

-	To attempt to bless, or at least to change your name.	0:03
	But let me use for Robert Terry,	0:11
	the name I hope you already know you have.	0:15
	It's the name Nathan gave to the young Solomon	0:20
	when he called him Jedidiah, beloved of the Lord.	0:23
	If you know this about Robert Young,	0:31
	that he is really beloved of the Lord,	0:34
	it will mean that you shall be able to hear.	0:38
	And if you can hear this people seven days and seven nights,	0:44
	you have a right to 20 minutes on Sunday.	0:50
	And in that 20 minutes, and through the seven days,	0:56
	you, beloved of the Lord having heard and hearing,	1:02
	and having done your homework	1:08
	in a great university setting is quite possible	1:11
	that you might have more to say to, for,	1:16
	with, on a count of, in behalf of man	1:22
	than from any other place you might ever have stood.	1:29
	May God bless you here, Jedidiah,	1:34
	even as He blessed that dear one before you and before him.	1:40
	And as we trust He will bless whomever may follow,	1:49
	for part of the charge is to know	1:54
	that I really am, just a chapter.	1:57
	Jedidiah, beloved of the Lord,	2:03
	may hear this people and be heard.	2:08
-	Beloved in the Lord,	2:22
	and all who in this holy place, worship with us	2:25
	in spirit and in truth,	2:29
	and who call up on the name of God, receive this charge.	2:31
	This is none other than the house of God,	2:38
	and this is the very gate of heaven.	2:42
	Let us therefore be alive in God's service,	2:46
	and worship him here in the beauty of holiness.	2:50
	Let us make a joyful noise unto the Lord,	2:57
	serve Him with gladness	3:01
	and come before His presence with singing.	3:04
	Let us enter into His gates with thanksgiving	3:08
	and into His courts with prayers.	3:12
	Let us be thankful unto Him	3:16
	and bless His name, for the Lord is good.	3:18
	His mercy is everlasting	3:23
	and His truth endureth to all generations.	3:26
	And by the grace of God,	3:32
	may we be earnestly intent upon worship	3:35
	as often as we enter the sanctuary,	3:39
	glad to hear the reading and the preaching of the word	3:44
	with sensitive and responsive hearts and minds,	3:49
	eager to receive the blessed sacrament	3:54
	in true obedience and reverence,	3:58
	joyfully bound together in the fellowship of prayer	4:01
	with compassion and loving concern and charity,	4:07
	one for another,	4:12
	happily committed to the least of our brethren.	4:15
	And so to praise thee, not only with our lips	4:20
	but with our whole lives.	4:24
	By God's grace, may we now welcome	4:28
	and gratefully receive Robert Terry Young,	4:33
	as minister to the university family,	4:38
	solemnly resolved to love, honor and respect him	4:43
	as servant and spokesman of God.	4:51
	To encourage, support and pray for him and his family,	4:56
	to be truly thankful for him,	5:03
	to be fair and considerate in our judgment of him	5:06
	and to labor with him, and at the side of his staff,	5:13
	his fellow rabbi, priest, clergy, ministers of music	5:19
	and so to do all in our power as coworkers with them	5:29
	to advance the kingdom among the children of men,	5:34
	and so to honor the name of God, amen.	5:38
-	My dear friends and fellow believers,	5:58
	will you now join with me in this covenant	6:02
	of minister and congregation.	6:06
	We, minister and congregation	6:15
	do now make covenant before God and with one another,	6:19
	for a renewed ministry in the name	6:24
	and in the spirit of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.	6:27
	We bind ourselves to one another	6:32
	and to the God and father of us all	6:36
	in obedience, in service and in love.	6:39
	God has many services to be done.	6:43
	Some are easy, others are difficult.	6:47
	Some bring honor, others bring reproach.	6:51
	Some are suitable to our natural desires	6:55
	and personal interest, others are contrary to both.	6:58
	In some, we may please God and please ourselves,	7:03
	in others we cannot please God, except by denying ourselves.	7:07
	Yet the power to do all these things	7:13
	is assuredly given us in God, who strengthens us,	7:16
	therefore let us make the covenant of God our own.	7:21
	Let us engage our lives to the Lord	7:26
	and resolve in His strength, to love Him above all else,	7:29
	and our neighbor as ourselves.	7:34
	Let us now in full dependence on His grace	7:37
	and trusting in His promises	7:41
	give ourselves a new to Him and to one another.	7:44
	Congregation may be seated and let us pray together.	7:49
	Oh God, we take upon ourselves with joy,	7:58
	the york of obedience.	8:02
	We commit ourselves for love of you,	8:05
	to seek and do your perfect will.	8:09
	We are no longer our own, but yours.	8:12
	Put us, oh God to what you will,	8:17
	rank us with whom you will,	8:20
	put us to doing, put us to suffering.	8:24
	Let us work for you or be restful for you.	8:29
	Let us be exalted for you or brought low for you.	8:34
	Let us be full, let us be empty.	8:39
	Let us have all things. Let us have nothing.	8:44
	All that we have and are we now covenant in service to you	8:49
	and to our neighbor.	8:55
	And now, oh glorious and blessed God,	8:57
	father, son, and Holy Spirit,	9:01
	you are ours and we are yours.	9:04
	And this covenant of love and service we have made	9:09
	in this place, on this day, let it be sealed by your grace.	9:12
	Amen.	9:18
	(bright piano music)	9:26
	(indistinct)	9:51
-	With these gifts, we represent the offering of our lives	15:32
	to thee, oh God, amen.	15:36
	(bright piano music)	15:42
	(indistinct)	16:20
-	Now, will you receive this blessing.	20:05
	The grace of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.	20:09
	The love of God, our father	20:14
	and the communion and fellowship of the Holy Spirit,	20:17
	be with you this day and forever.	20:22
	♪ Amen ♪	20:32
	♪ Amen ♪	20:37
	♪ Amen ♪	20:42
	♪ Amen ♪	20:46
	♪ Amen ♪	20:57
	♪ Amen ♪	21:06
	(bell rings)	21:38
	(bright piano music)	21:52

Item Info

Title:

Robert M. Blackburn - "Our Earthen Vessels" Installation of Robert T. Young (November 18, 1973)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4cv4gs6m

Date:

November 18, 1973

Speaker:

Blackburn, Robert M.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0678
ref6558_b6z
uachapelsermaud
duke:628094
dcrau002656
ark:/87924/r4cv4gs6m
c93c440a-3551-40bf-8434-85028a31b8ad

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Related Resources:

See below

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.

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

Rights Note:

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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Robert M. Blackburn - "Our Earthen Vessels" Installation of Robert T. Young (November 18, 1973)

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Item Info

1. Robert M. Blackburn - "Our Earthen Vessels" (November 18, 1973)

Duke University Archives

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Robert M. Blackburn - "Our Earthen Vessels" Installation of Robert T. Young (November 18, 1973)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives

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