Robert T. Young - "Anger, Comfort, Joy, Salvation" (March 5, 1978)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| (high intensity cathedral music) | 0:06 | |
| (congregation member coughs) | 10:04 | |
| - | Grace and peace to you from God our father, | 10:55 |
| and from the Lord, Jesus Christ. | 10:58 | |
| Let us pray. | 11:01 | |
| Give ear, oh Lord, unto our prayer | 11:05 | |
| and attend to the voice of our supplications. | 11:09 | |
| Teach us your way, oh Lord. | 11:13 | |
| We will walk in your truth. | 11:15 | |
| Unite our hearts to fear your name. | 11:18 | |
| We will praise you, oh Lord our God with all our heart. | 11:22 | |
| And we will glorify your name forever more, | 11:26 | |
| for great is your mercy toward us, amen. | 11:30 | |
| (high intensity cathedral music) | 11:36 | |
| (background noise) | 14:02 | |
| My sisters and brothers when we gather to praise God, | 14:09 | |
| we remember that we are his people | 14:13 | |
| who have preferred our wills to his, | 14:16 | |
| accepting his power to become new persons in Christ, | 14:19 | |
| let us confess our sin before God and one another | 14:24 | |
| in the litany of forgiveness, let us pray. | 14:28 | |
| We have sinned in many ways. | 14:33 | |
| - | Forgive us Lord. | 14:35 |
| - | We are filled with anger and hatred. | 14:38 |
| (congregation answers indistinctly) | 14:41 | |
| Forgive us Lord. | 14:45 | |
| We are filled with jealousy and envy. | 14:47 | |
| (congregation answers indistinctly) | 14:50 | |
| Forgive us Lord. | 14:55 | |
| We are afraid and lonely. | 14:57 | |
| (congregation answers indistinctly) | 15:00 | |
| Forgive us Lord. | 15:04 | |
| We are selfish and proud. | 15:06 | |
| (congregation answers indistinctly) | 15:10 | |
| Forgive us Lord. | 15:15 | |
| We are lazy and apathetic. | 15:17 | |
| (congregation answers indistinctly) | 15:20 | |
| Forgive us Lord, for these and all our sins. | 15:26 | |
| Forgive us Lord, amen. | 15:30 | |
| Let us continue silently with our personal confession. | 15:34 | |
| Hear these words of assurance and forgiveness | 15:59 | |
| from the Scriptures. | 16:01 | |
| The Lord is gracious and merciful, | 16:03 | |
| slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, | 16:06 | |
| for as the heavens are high above the earth, | 16:11 | |
| so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him. | 16:14 | |
| As far as the east is from the west, | 16:19 | |
| so far does he remove our transgressions from us, | 16:23 | |
| in the name of Jesus Christ, we are forgiven, amen. | 16:27 | |
| Let us give thanks for God is good, | 16:34 | |
| and God's love is everlasting. | 16:36 | |
| Thanks be to God who forgives us. | 16:40 | |
| Thanks be to God who offers us peace. | 16:43 | |
| Thanks be to God who loves us even now. | 16:47 | |
| We extend to you our warmest welcome on this first Sunday | 16:57 | |
| of the university's spring break. | 17:00 | |
| And we trust that your presence with us, | 17:03 | |
| for the worship of all mighty God will be a blessing to you. | 17:06 | |
| Let me remind you that during the spring break, | 17:11 | |
| the Lenten breakfasts on Wednesday and Thursday | 17:14 | |
| will not be held. | 17:18 | |
| They will however, resume a week from Wednesday | 17:20 | |
| on west campus and a week from Thursday on east campus. | 17:24 | |
| Two other brief announcements. | 17:29 | |
| First, there will be no evening worship service tonight. | 17:32 | |
| And second, as is our custom on the first Sunday | 17:37 | |
| of each month, the sacrament of the Lord's supper | 17:40 | |
| will be served in the Memorial Chapel | 17:43 | |
| at the conclusion of this service. | 17:45 | |
| Will you please take this announcement | 17:49 | |
| as your personal invitation to join us | 17:51 | |
| in that celebration of Holy Communion. | 17:54 | |
| Let us pray. | 18:03 | |
| (papers flipping) | 18:09 | |
| Lord open our hearts and minds | 18:10 | |
| by the power of your Holy Spirit | 18:12 | |
| that as the Scriptures are read and the Word proclaimed, | 18:15 | |
| we may hear with joy what you say to us this very day. | 18:19 | |
| Amen. | 18:24 | |
| (papers flipping) | 18:26 | |
| The old Testament lesson comes from the 12th chapter | 18:30 | |
| of Isaiah 1-6. | 18:34 | |
| In this passage, the prophet seeks to assure Israel | 18:38 | |
| that the prophecies of the coming empire | 18:42 | |
| of the king of peace will indeed be fulfilled. | 18:45 | |
| Hear now the word of God. | 18:50 | |
| "You will say in that day, | 18:53 | |
| I will give thanks to thee oh Lord, | 18:56 | |
| for thou wast angry with me, | 19:00 | |
| thy anger turned away and thou hast comfort me. | 19:02 | |
| Behold, God is my salvation. | 19:07 | |
| I will trust and will not be afraid. | 19:10 | |
| For the Lord God is my strength and my song, | 19:15 | |
| and he has become my salvation. | 19:18 | |
| With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation, | 19:22 | |
| and you will say in that day, give thanks to the Lord, | 19:27 | |
| Call upon his name, make known his deeds among the nations | 19:32 | |
| proclaim that his name is exalted. | 19:38 | |
| Sing praises to the Lord for he has done gloriously. | 19:42 | |
| Let this be known in all the earth, shout and sing for joy, | 19:46 | |
| oh inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst, | 19:51 | |
| is the holy one of Israel," amen. | 19:55 | |
| Will the congregation please stand | 20:00 | |
| for the reading of the gospel. | 20:02 | |
| The lesson is taken from the gospel | 20:14 | |
| according to St. Luke 15:11-32. | 20:16 | |
| The parable of the prodigal son. | 20:22 | |
| "And Jesus said there was a man who had two sons. | 20:27 | |
| And the younger of them said to his father, | 20:31 | |
| 'Father give me the share of property that falls to me.' | 20:34 | |
| And he divided his living between them. | 20:39 | |
| Not many days later, the younger son gathered all that | 20:43 | |
| he and took his journey into a far country | 20:46 | |
| and there he squandered his property in loose living. | 20:50 | |
| And when he had spent everything, | 20:55 | |
| a great famine arose in that country | 20:57 | |
| and he began to be in want. | 20:59 | |
| So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens | 21:02 | |
| of that country who sent him into his fields to feed swine. | 21:05 | |
| And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate, | 21:10 | |
| and no one gave him anything. | 21:14 | |
| But when he came to himself, he said, | 21:18 | |
| how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough | 21:21 | |
| and to spare? | 21:25 | |
| But I perish here with hunger. | 21:27 | |
| I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, | 21:31 | |
| 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. | 21:35 | |
| I am no longer worthy to be called your son. | 21:39 | |
| Treat me as one of your hired servants.' | 21:43 | |
| And he arose and came to his father. | 21:47 | |
| But while he was yet at a distance, | 21:50 | |
| his father saw him and had compassion | 21:52 | |
| and ran and embraced him and kissed him. | 21:55 | |
| And the son said to him, | 21:59 | |
| 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, | 22:00 | |
| I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' | 22:05 | |
| But the father said to his servants, | 22:10 | |
| 'Bring quickly the best robe and put it on him, | 22:13 | |
| and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet, | 22:17 | |
| and bring the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat | 22:22 | |
| and make merry, for this my son was dead | 22:26 | |
| and is alive again, he was lost and is found.' | 22:31 | |
| And they began to make merry. | 22:36 | |
| Now his elder son was in the field | 22:39 | |
| and as he came and drew near to the house, | 22:42 | |
| he heard music and dancing. | 22:44 | |
| And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. | 22:47 | |
| And he said to him, 'Your brother has come | 22:52 | |
| and your father has killed the fatted calf | 22:54 | |
| because he has received him safe and sound.' | 22:58 | |
| But he was angry and refused to go in. | 23:02 | |
| His father came out and entreated him, | 23:05 | |
| but he answered his father, 'Lo these many years | 23:08 | |
| I have served you and I have never disobeyed your command, | 23:12 | |
| yet you never gave me a kid that I might make merry | 23:16 | |
| with my friends, but when this son of yours came, | 23:20 | |
| who has devoured your living with harlots, | 23:26 | |
| you killed for him the fatted calf.' | 23:28 | |
| And he said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, | 23:32 | |
| and all that is mine is yours. | 23:37 | |
| It was fitting to make merry and be glad, | 23:41 | |
| for this your brother was dead and is alive, | 23:44 | |
| he was lost and is found.'" | 23:48 | |
| Praise be to God who gives us the victory, amen. | 23:52 | |
| (high intensity cathedral music) | 23:58 | |
| - | Today's theme for the fourth Sunday in Lent is rejoice. | 25:13 |
| Now I'm certain in my own mind | 25:20 | |
| that those who prepared the lectionary | 25:24 | |
| for this particular time did not know that those of us | 25:26 | |
| in this community would have extra cause | 25:31 | |
| for rejoicing today, | 25:33 | |
| for athletic as well as spiritual reasons. | 25:37 | |
| But I would like to offer a word of congratulations | 25:43 | |
| to coach Foster and the other coaches and all the players, | 25:45 | |
| not only for playing some great basketball three times this | 25:50 | |
| week, but, as I have said to many people, | 25:54 | |
| for being the real honest to goodness gentlemen | 25:57 | |
| that they really are. | 26:01 | |
| The kind of students, the kind of persons indeed, | 26:03 | |
| to make anyone proud. | 26:06 | |
| They made, I'm sure, all good and loyal Duke people | 26:09 | |
| mighty happy this week. | 26:12 | |
| And I'm sure all of us are happy for all of them. | 26:14 | |
| It's sort of like my wife said on the way back home | 26:19 | |
| yesterday, "It's good to know that we can be good winners | 26:22 | |
| as well as good losers." | 26:27 | |
| And it is indeed. | 26:31 | |
| Rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. | 26:36 | |
| That is the opening word appropriate | 26:41 | |
| to this the fourth Sunday in Lent. | 26:44 | |
| Lent, as we all know, | 26:48 | |
| is that holy season of the church year, | 26:49 | |
| when we are to be in a constant state of penitence | 26:51 | |
| and confession. | 26:55 | |
| It all begins with the ashes of Ash Wednesday, | 26:57 | |
| reaches its climactic penitential peak | 27:01 | |
| in the betrayal of Maundy Thursday, the agony of Good Friday | 27:05 | |
| and the utter despair of low Saturday. | 27:10 | |
| The terrible, terrible, unbelievable inhumanity | 27:15 | |
| of God's people is met with the sure and precise | 27:19 | |
| and demanding righteousness and judgment of God. | 27:24 | |
| Lent is a time of serious somber, severe soul searching | 27:29 | |
| on the part of us all. | 27:35 | |
| Thus this word of rejoicing, | 27:37 | |
| coming at the very mid point of Lent | 27:40 | |
| is a welcome and a happy one for us all. | 27:43 | |
| All of the lessons for today emphasize this jubilant theme, | 27:47 | |
| rejoice ye with Jerusalem and be glad with her. | 27:52 | |
| All ye who love her, rejoice for joy with her, | 27:57 | |
| all ye who mourn for her. | 28:02 | |
| From the old Testament lesson in Isaiah, | 28:07 | |
| "With joy, you will draw water from the wells of salvation, | 28:09 | |
| shout and sing for joy oh, inhabitants of Zion." | 28:14 | |
| From the gospel, we hear again the majestic | 28:19 | |
| incomparable story of God's boundless love and grace, | 28:23 | |
| seen in the homecoming, when a father indeed makes merry | 28:31 | |
| because his son was lost and is found, | 28:36 | |
| was dead and is alive again. | 28:41 | |
| The word surely needed in this long season, | 28:46 | |
| seven weeks of penitence. | 28:50 | |
| And the word surely intended from the lessons for this day | 28:52 | |
| is a simple yet essential one, | 28:57 | |
| namely, rejoice, rejoice, rejoice. | 29:00 | |
| The passage I want us to let speak this morning | 29:06 | |
| is a passage from Isaiah 12. | 29:10 | |
| Here is a hymn, a song, a word of praise | 29:14 | |
| or a word of thanksgiving. | 29:18 | |
| It is the response to what the writer of this prayer says | 29:20 | |
| is the future saving action of God. | 29:25 | |
| The writer writes after the Babylonian exile, | 29:29 | |
| but he writes says if the time | 29:33 | |
| were actually the time of the exile. | 29:35 | |
| The writer writes says, | 29:39 | |
| if the joy and the salvation are to be experienced | 29:41 | |
| in that day, after the return from the Babylonian captivity. | 29:44 | |
| And yet the writer surely, already knows that God is their | 29:50 | |
| sure and strong salvation, their deliverer. | 29:54 | |
| It would be as if this were a Jewish writer | 30:00 | |
| in the 20th century, writing after the Holocaust | 30:03 | |
| and after the establishment of the state of Israel. | 30:07 | |
| And yet writing to describe the time | 30:10 | |
| of the late '30s and the early '40s, | 30:13 | |
| or it would be as if this were a Christian writer writing | 30:16 | |
| after the resurrection and yet writing in the time | 30:19 | |
| between Good Friday and Easter morning. | 30:23 | |
| You know, and yet salvation has not yet come. | 30:27 | |
| You believe, and yet joy is not fully known. | 30:32 | |
| You have been there and seen and heard and know | 30:36 | |
| and experience, and thus can sing praise to the Lord | 30:40 | |
| and yet you are not there. | 30:44 | |
| It's like Martin Luther King Jr's word | 30:48 | |
| that he had been to the mountain top. | 30:51 | |
| And he had looked over and he had seen the promised land. | 30:54 | |
| He was not there indeed. | 30:57 | |
| We were not there, none of us was there. | 30:59 | |
| We had not yet arrived and yet he could say, | 31:02 | |
| "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord." | 31:05 | |
| for he believed in the goodness of the Lord, | 31:09 | |
| in the land of the living. | 31:13 | |
| Surely the word of Isaiah is a word for us in our day, | 31:16 | |
| in our time of living in between this time of transition, | 31:20 | |
| this moment of the yes and now, and the no, not yet. | 31:27 | |
| This time I've hoped for, longed for | 31:34 | |
| much needed deliverance. | 31:37 | |
| And as I was writing these words, | 31:40 | |
| it occurred to me how badly we are in need | 31:41 | |
| of some kind of deliverance, | 31:45 | |
| some word of hope and assurance. | 31:47 | |
| When, for example, in conversation with a friend of mine | 31:50 | |
| just this week about the energy crisis, | 31:53 | |
| we talk about the perils of nuclear power. | 31:57 | |
| And this friend of mine can sit across the table from me | 32:00 | |
| and calmly say, "It's inevitable | 32:03 | |
| that there will be a nuclear power 'accident' | 32:05 | |
| and we'll lose 200 or 300,000 people." | 32:10 | |
| And his voice continued, | 32:14 | |
| as I thought of just what such an accident might mean, | 32:17 | |
| or a word of assurance is needed when Ellie Wiesel | 32:25 | |
| who gave a moving and memorable address | 32:27 | |
| on the Holocaust here recently responded to a question | 32:30 | |
| in a book by Harry James Cargas and said, | 32:34 | |
| "I believe with fear that if there should be another | 32:36 | |
| holocaust, it will be a universal holocaust." | 32:41 | |
| So what beautiful words of thanksgiving these are | 32:50 | |
| in Isaiah 12, and why not? | 32:53 | |
| Let me try to put these words in some context for you. | 32:57 | |
| They come for us in the book of Isaiah, | 33:00 | |
| heard upon the words of chapters 9, 11, 9 and 11. | 33:03 | |
| Indeed, some of the most beautiful, | 33:08 | |
| some of the most hopeful, some of the most stirring imagery | 33:10 | |
| and words of poetry ever, ever written. | 33:14 | |
| Listen from chapter 9, | 33:16 | |
| "The people who walk in darkness have seen a great light, | 33:19 | |
| those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, | 33:24 | |
| on them has the light shined, | 33:27 | |
| for the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, | 33:31 | |
| the rod of his oppressor thou has broken, | 33:36 | |
| for to us a child is born, to us a son is given | 33:40 | |
| and the government will be upon his shoulder | 33:45 | |
| and his name will be called wonderful counselor, | 33:48 | |
| mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace, | 33:51 | |
| of the increase of his government | 33:56 | |
| and of peace there will be no end." | 33:59 | |
| Those words from chapter 9. | 34:03 | |
| Listen to the words of chapter 11. | 34:06 | |
| "There shall come forth a root out of the stump of Jesse | 34:09 | |
| and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, | 34:14 | |
| righteousness shall be the girdle of his waist | 34:18 | |
| and faithfulness the girdle of his loins." | 34:22 | |
| And then these words, | 34:25 | |
| perhaps as beautiful as any words ever written | 34:27 | |
| about the loveliness of life | 34:30 | |
| that this writer believed would be. | 34:33 | |
| And I frankly believe someday will be. | 34:35 | |
| "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, | 34:40 | |
| and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, | 34:45 | |
| and the calf and the lion and the fattening together, | 34:49 | |
| and a little child shall lead them. | 34:54 | |
| The cows and the bear shall feed together, | 34:58 | |
| their young shall lie down together | 35:01 | |
| and the lion shall eat straw like the ox, | 35:03 | |
| the suckling child shall play over the hole of the ass | 35:07 | |
| and the weaned child shall put his hand in the adders den, | 35:12 | |
| they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain, | 35:17 | |
| for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord | 35:24 | |
| as the waters cover the sea." | 35:29 | |
| Is it any wonder then that these words | 35:35 | |
| in chapter 12 follow those words? | 35:40 | |
| "You will say in that day, | 35:44 | |
| 'I will give thanks to thee oh Lord, | 35:47 | |
| for though thou wast angry with me, | 35:51 | |
| thy anger turned away and thou hast comfort me. | 35:53 | |
| Behold, God is my salvation. | 35:58 | |
| I will trust and not be afraid | 36:03 | |
| for the Lord God is my strength and my song, | 36:06 | |
| and he has become my salvation.' | 36:10 | |
| With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation, | 36:13 | |
| rejoice, rejoice, rejoice." | 36:19 | |
| And in the midst of our rejoicing right now, | 36:26 | |
| I'd like for us to look at four of these words, | 36:29 | |
| four words from this very passage, | 36:31 | |
| anger, comfort, joy, and salvation. | 36:34 | |
| Four words that are at the heart | 36:40 | |
| of the Jewish Christian tradition. | 36:41 | |
| Four words that are at the heart of our own Christian faith. | 36:44 | |
| Four words that tell us of God's love revealed in Christ. | 36:47 | |
| Four words, indeed, that give us cause for rejoicing. | 36:51 | |
| Words are symbols. | 36:56 | |
| They carry much more than simple meanings. | 36:59 | |
| Words create pictures and images. | 37:02 | |
| They recall pasts and presents and hopes for the future. | 37:05 | |
| A word, one word often can sustain as nothing else will do. | 37:10 | |
| To refer to Isaiah again, | 37:17 | |
| he uses words in the most beautiful | 37:21 | |
| and the most symbolic way. | 37:23 | |
| Some of the most powerful words in the English language | 37:26 | |
| are central for him. | 37:29 | |
| For one who has experienced what he has, | 37:30 | |
| each of these words is packed with meaning. | 37:33 | |
| Words that he uses such as night, silence, | 37:37 | |
| clouds, stars, tears, | 37:45 | |
| or words such as those used by those | 37:55 | |
| who write our newspaper articles. | 38:01 | |
| William Randolph Hearst, supposedly for years, | 38:06 | |
| told his reporters that each story that they write | 38:09 | |
| should have certain elements and experiences of life in it. | 38:15 | |
| Each story should contain tears, laughs, loves and thrills. | 38:21 | |
| So it is with words. | 38:32 | |
| The word anger. | 38:35 | |
| "For though thou wast angry with me, | 38:38 | |
| thy anger turned away." | 38:41 | |
| I believe it is good for us to remember | 38:46 | |
| that God is indeed a God of anger. | 38:48 | |
| To forget this essential characteristic of God | 38:54 | |
| is to do so at our own risk and at our own danger. | 38:57 | |
| God's anger is stirred by our disobedience. | 39:02 | |
| God's anger is provoked by our unfaithfulness. | 39:06 | |
| God's anger is expressed toward our injustices. | 39:10 | |
| Remembering the wrath and the anger of God toward their | 39:15 | |
| apostasy and their rebellion, often brought the Israelites | 39:18 | |
| up short and helped them to correct their evil ways | 39:22 | |
| and be restored to God's favor. | 39:26 | |
| Misfortune, loss, sickness, sadness, | 39:30 | |
| suffering, tragedy, defeat, confusion, despair, death | 39:34 | |
| as any or all of these came to the Jewish people, | 39:41 | |
| they inevitably connected the presence of suffering and pain | 39:46 | |
| in their lives with the wrath or anger of God being poured | 39:50 | |
| out on them for their sin and rebellion and disobedience. | 39:54 | |
| God was for them indeed, a God of high expectation. | 39:59 | |
| One who demanded total loyalty, | 40:04 | |
| one of unwavering righteousness. | 40:07 | |
| And so to fail to be loyal or righteous or obedient | 40:11 | |
| was to bring the anger of God upon oneself | 40:15 | |
| or one's household or indeed upon all of one's people. | 40:17 | |
| But today we're too sophisticated | 40:23 | |
| to make that connection automatic. | 40:27 | |
| And I say that not sarcastically. | 40:31 | |
| We are, I believe. | 40:34 | |
| For we see now that often there are intermediate | 40:36 | |
| or mediating causes between God and the suffering | 40:40 | |
| that befalls us. | 40:43 | |
| I could not agree more wholeheartedly than I do | 40:45 | |
| with the need to separate some of the devastating | 40:48 | |
| experiences of our lives from the direct intervention | 40:51 | |
| of God, things are not always God's will. | 40:54 | |
| God is not always to blame or at fault or the initiator | 41:02 | |
| or the vengeful, wrathful, get even God | 41:07 | |
| that some people make him out to be. | 41:10 | |
| And yet we would do well to remember that God is a God | 41:14 | |
| of justice, and righteousness, and love, | 41:19 | |
| and mercy, and forgiveness, | 41:22 | |
| and that God's anger toward our loose | 41:24 | |
| and irresponsible, uncaring, immoral, disobedient behavior | 41:28 | |
| will not be restrained forever. | 41:33 | |
| There is a need for us to be reminded to recall | 41:42 | |
| and then to remember that God still is a God of anger. | 41:46 | |
| And this anger surely may be acted out upon us | 41:52 | |
| as individuals, as a community, | 41:56 | |
| as a nation or as all peoples. | 41:57 | |
| If God is not a God of anger and wrath and judgment, | 42:01 | |
| then why need we fear any behavior we act out? | 42:04 | |
| Or as is the case with Isaiah here, | 42:10 | |
| why feel relief or joy or ease | 42:14 | |
| when we know that the anger of God is turned away from us? | 42:17 | |
| Comfort, here is the word our hearts and souls most long | 42:25 | |
| to know, not just to hear of comfort, | 42:33 | |
| but to feel it and be assured and be reassured. | 42:37 | |
| "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people," says your God. | 42:41 | |
| "Speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her | 42:46 | |
| that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned." | 42:50 | |
| Jesus said, "I will not leave you comfortless. | 42:54 | |
| I will come to you. | 42:59 | |
| I will pray to the father and he will give you | 43:01 | |
| another comforter who will be with you forever." | 43:03 | |
| Pain, suffering, sadness, heartache, despair, death, | 43:09 | |
| these are not the final words | 43:14 | |
| The final words are, "I am alpha and omega, | 43:16 | |
| the beginning and the ending." | 43:19 | |
| The final words are, "Lo, I am with you always, | 43:22 | |
| even to the end of the age." | 43:25 | |
| The final words are, "The Lord is my shepherd, | 43:28 | |
| I shall not want. | 43:32 | |
| Yay though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, | 43:36 | |
| I will fear no evil and I will dwell in the house | 43:39 | |
| of the Lord forever and ever, and ever." | 43:44 | |
| As Isaiah writes again, "Suffering is not the answer. | 43:53 | |
| Suffering, my friends, is the question." | 43:58 | |
| Somebody is writing a certain script, | 44:04 | |
| but we cannot read it, comfort. | 44:07 | |
| "Thou," Isaiah wrote, "thou, oh God didst comfort me, | 44:12 | |
| personally and reassuring." | 44:19 | |
| Joy, with joy you will draw water | 44:23 | |
| from the wells of salvation. | 44:27 | |
| The joy comes because we know that there is water there, | 44:30 | |
| we know what the water contains. | 44:34 | |
| As one line from "The Little Prince" goes, | 44:37 | |
| "The reason that the desert is so beautiful, | 44:40 | |
| is that somewhere out there we know there is an Oasis." | 44:43 | |
| So it is. | 44:49 | |
| Joy comes because God provides us the wells of life. | 44:50 | |
| God provides us the water. | 44:54 | |
| God allows us to draw from these wells. | 44:56 | |
| They are for our good, the water of life, | 44:59 | |
| the well of living, the water which makes us never thirst. | 45:02 | |
| Even Jesus the Christ is God's gift to us | 45:06 | |
| to bring true joy to our lives. | 45:10 | |
| And then for us in turn to bring some joy to other people. | 45:12 | |
| Joy, for who? | 45:17 | |
| For you, for me, who is this you, this me | 45:20 | |
| that God has allowed to be? | 45:25 | |
| I was rereading what I think is probably Carlyle Marney's | 45:28 | |
| greatest book, his little book entitled, | 45:32 | |
| "Recovery of the Person." | 45:34 | |
| And in this book I came across Marney's writing about | 45:36 | |
| an experience that he had with Carl Sandburg. | 45:43 | |
| And one day when visiting Carl Sandburg, | 45:47 | |
| he asked Sandburg to read for him | 45:49 | |
| his masterpiece wilderness. | 45:52 | |
| Marney said that Sandburg was 84 years old | 45:56 | |
| when he read these lines to him. | 46:01 | |
| And those of you who know the poem will know | 46:04 | |
| that this poem talks about man, about woman, | 46:06 | |
| about you and me, about human beings saying that, | 46:11 | |
| "Man is an animal, that we are animals. | 46:15 | |
| There is a wolf in me, there is a fox in me. | 46:22 | |
| There is a hog in me, a fish, a baboon, an eagle, | 46:28 | |
| a mockingbird, a zoo, a menagerie inside my ribs, | 46:34 | |
| oh, I got a zoo, I got a menagerie inside my ribs | 46:39 | |
| under my bony head, under my red valve heart, | 46:43 | |
| and I got something else, | 46:48 | |
| it is a man child heart, a woman child heart. | 46:51 | |
| It is a father and a mother and a lover. | 46:56 | |
| It came from God knows where, | 47:00 | |
| it is going to God knows where, | 47:02 | |
| for I am the keeper of the zoo, | 47:05 | |
| for I say yes and I say no. | 47:09 | |
| This you, this me, this keeper of the zoo, | 47:14 | |
| God has given to us the joy | 47:18 | |
| in the water from the wells of salvation. | 47:21 | |
| Sometimes our joy though comes if we only see | 47:24 | |
| what God has given us." | 47:28 | |
| The poet writes, "Earth's crowned with heaven | 47:31 | |
| and every common bush of fire with God, | 47:36 | |
| and only he who sees takes off his shoes, | 47:41 | |
| the rest sit round it and pluck black berries." | 47:46 | |
| Salvation, the liturgy reads, "Having received the end | 47:55 | |
| of their faith, even the salvation of their souls." | 48:01 | |
| That is the end, for all of us, for each of us. | 48:07 | |
| Salvation, wholeness, fulfillment, | 48:15 | |
| fruition, becoming, salvation. | 48:18 | |
| Many things to many people, | 48:23 | |
| different things to different people. | 48:26 | |
| From de Chardin, these words, | 48:31 | |
| "Someday after mastering the winds, the waves, | 48:35 | |
| the tide, the gravity, we shall harness for God, | 48:40 | |
| the energies of love. | 48:44 | |
| And then for the second time in the history of the world, | 48:48 | |
| we will have discovered fire." | 48:54 | |
| Love, power, fire, wholeness, authenticity, salvation, | 48:58 | |
| or as someone else has put it, salvation is to learn | 49:06 | |
| to follow the way, to learn how to be the way | 49:08 | |
| without getting in the way of others. | 49:12 | |
| In the midst of our wanderings and wonderings | 49:17 | |
| are strugglings and searchings are crying and questioning. | 49:19 | |
| In the midst of our feelings of lossness and loneliness | 49:23 | |
| and estrangement, it is to have a sense of at homeness | 49:27 | |
| in the presence of God and in the company of others. | 49:31 | |
| Listen to these words of Henri Nouwen, | 49:36 | |
| "When God has become our shepherd, our refuge, our fortress, | 49:39 | |
| then we can reach out to him in the midst of a broken world | 49:44 | |
| and feel at home while still on the way. | 49:48 | |
| When God dwells in us, we can wait | 49:53 | |
| while we have already arrived and ask, | 49:57 | |
| while we have already received." | 50:01 | |
| Or for some, salvation is simply, yes. | 50:07 | |
| James W. Angel quotes a beautiful line from E. E. Cummings. | 50:14 | |
| Cummings writes, "Yes, is a world. | 50:20 | |
| And in this world of yes | 50:26 | |
| live skillfully curled all other worlds. | 50:29 | |
| Maybe so, just maybe so." | 50:38 | |
| For angel goes on to say that, "Yes is stronger than no. | 50:43 | |
| Is the universe some deliberate artwork of God? | 50:51 | |
| Yes, does God really know we are here | 50:55 | |
| and is God's love a love which out lasts | 50:59 | |
| and outlives our own? | 51:02 | |
| Yes, is there hope for me after I have failed? | 51:05 | |
| Can I say yes to myself as a person even when my performance | 51:11 | |
| wasn't what it was supposed to be? | 51:15 | |
| Yes, is it right for us to dream the impossible dream, | 51:19 | |
| to go on attempting to reach the unreachable star? | 51:25 | |
| Yes, after life, is there more? | 51:29 | |
| Yes, honestly? | 51:33 | |
| Yes." | 51:36 | |
| Anger, comfort, joy, salvation. | 51:42 | |
| A progression of acceptance and fulfillment, words of life, | 51:48 | |
| calls for rejoicing on this fourth Sunday | 51:55 | |
| in the season of Lent. | 52:01 | |
| I'd like to close with a prayer | 52:04 | |
| that has some words by Robert Raines, | 52:08 | |
| words that have come to mean a great deal to me. | 52:10 | |
| So will you join with me as we pray. | 52:15 | |
| Oh Lord, we are uneasy looking into the future. | 52:20 | |
| We need to know that you are with us and we are with you. | 52:27 | |
| Give us the confidence that though all things change, | 52:35 | |
| you are the same God, ever gracious from whose love | 52:38 | |
| nothing can separate us. | 52:46 | |
| Let us feel you on our pulses and in our breathing, | 52:49 | |
| and convince us in our bodies that we live | 52:54 | |
| and die in the hollow of your hand. | 52:58 | |
| Release now those mute longings hidden in our hearts | 53:04 | |
| to join the early morning bird song, | 53:09 | |
| singing green beginnings and multicolored hopes | 53:12 | |
| for you are shaking us and shaping us | 53:17 | |
| into a spring time people with Easter in our eyes. | 53:22 | |
| Oh God, remind us of the spring time | 53:31 | |
| and of the Easter that is to be through Jesus Christ, | 53:37 | |
| our Lord, amen. | 53:43 | |
| (high intensity cathedral music) | 53:54 | |
| - | Let us affirm what we believe. | 57:13 |
| We believe in God who has created and is creating, | 57:16 | |
| who has come in the truly human Jesus to reconcile | 57:22 | |
| and make new, who works in us and others by the spirit. | 57:26 | |
| We trust God who calls us to be the church, | 57:33 | |
| to celebrate life in its fullness, to love and serve others, | 57:38 | |
| to seek justice and resist evil, | 57:45 | |
| to proclaim Jesus crucified and risen, | 57:49 | |
| our judge and our hope, in life, in death | 57:53 | |
| in life beyond death, God is with us. | 57:59 | |
| We are not alone. | 58:03 | |
| Thanks be to God. | 58:06 | |
| The Lord be with you. | 58:08 | |
| - | And with your spirit. | 58:10 |
| - | Let us pray. | 58:13 |
| Gracious and eternal God, | 58:24 | |
| our creator, Redeemer, and sustainer. | 58:27 | |
| Hear us as we come to you this morning in faith | 58:32 | |
| for we know you answer prayer. | 58:37 | |
| Help us to listen to you with open hearts and open minds | 58:40 | |
| even as we pour out our souls to you in time of need. | 58:46 | |
| We ask that your strength and presence be with those | 58:53 | |
| who are hungry and in need of food, | 58:57 | |
| food for the body, food for the soul. | 59:02 | |
| Help us to assume our share of the responsibility | 59:07 | |
| for feeding these, our brothers and sisters. | 59:11 | |
| We ask your strength and presence for those who grieve | 59:17 | |
| and are hurting because of separation, | 59:21 | |
| estrangement, loss, or death, | 59:24 | |
| especially do we remember our brother, Joseph Farmer, | 59:31 | |
| comfort his family, sustain them in their time of sorrow, | 59:36 | |
| and help them to feel the gentle touch | 59:43 | |
| of your loving compassion. | 59:47 | |
| We pray for the elderly, the sick and infirmed, | 59:52 | |
| for those in hospitals, nursing homes, rest homes. | 59:57 | |
| We know that many of these people are lonely | 1:00:03 | |
| and in need of love, | 1:00:07 | |
| help us to acknowledge the fact not only doctors and nurses, | 1:00:10 | |
| but we too are administrators of your healing love. | 1:00:17 | |
| We also remember those in our community who are away | 1:00:24 | |
| for this much needed spring break. | 1:00:27 | |
| Bring them safely back to us, both rested and refreshed. | 1:00:31 | |
| Now, Lord, we pray for ourselves | 1:00:38 | |
| that we may be true and faithful disciples of your Word. | 1:00:42 | |
| Give us strength when we are weak, | 1:00:48 | |
| challenge us when we become lazy, | 1:00:52 | |
| judge us when we miss the mark as we so often do, | 1:00:56 | |
| and give us grace to continue in your love and service | 1:01:02 | |
| to your glory and honor. | 1:01:07 | |
| These are prayers we ask in the name of Christ our Lord, | 1:01:10 | |
| who when asked by his disciples, | 1:01:16 | |
| taught them how to pray even as he teaches us now, | 1:01:18 | |
| our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, | 1:01:24 | |
| thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth | 1:01:31 | |
| as it is in heaven. | 1:01:36 | |
| Give us this day our daily bread | 1:01:38 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses, | 1:01:42 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us, | 1:01:44 | |
| and lead us not into temptation, | 1:01:49 | |
| but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, | 1:01:52 | |
| power, and the glory forever, amen. | 1:01:58 | |
| (congregation member coughing) | 1:02:06 | |
| (high intensity cathedral music) | 1:02:12 | |
| - | Loving and gracious Lord, | 1:09:19 |
| we present these gifts to you and we present ourselves | 1:09:21 | |
| to you in gratitude for your great love. | 1:09:24 | |
| We know that we can only love because you first loved us. | 1:09:29 | |
| Indeed, you loved us so much that you gave your only son | 1:09:34 | |
| that we might have life and have it abundantly. | 1:09:37 | |
| We ask that you use these gifts, use us to feed the hungry, | 1:09:42 | |
| to heal the sick, to care for the poor, to comfort, to love, | 1:09:47 | |
| to do your will. | 1:09:53 | |
| Praise be your holy name forever and ever, amen. | 1:09:56 | |
| (high intensity cathedral music) | 1:10:07 | |
| - | Now will you receive this benediction, | 1:13:18 |
| the grace of our Lord, Jesus Christ, | 1:13:22 | |
| the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit | 1:13:24 | |
| be with you and all those you love, amen. | 1:13:28 | |
| (high intensity cathedral music) | 1:13:41 |
Item Info
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