Michael Williams - "The Unknown People and the Unknown God" (May 24, 1987)
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| (organ music) | 0:00 | |
| - | Welcome to Duke University and to Duke University chapel | 1:02 |
| on this memorial day weekend. | 1:08 | |
| We are delighted to have you worship with us. | 1:11 | |
| The minister to the university | 1:14 | |
| and the assistant minister to the university | 1:16 | |
| are both out of town. | 1:18 | |
| I'm the only one left working. | 1:20 | |
| (laughter) | 1:23 | |
| And so it's fallen onto me to preside this morning | 1:24 | |
| at a great service in which we welcome Dr. Michael Williams, | 1:28 | |
| who is the director of preaching ministries for the section | 1:35 | |
| and worship of the Board of Discipleship | 1:38 | |
| of the United Methodist Church. | 1:42 | |
| His offices are in Nashville, Tennessee | 1:44 | |
| and he leads the work of helping ministers | 1:48 | |
| to preach more effectively across the nation. | 1:53 | |
| We're delighted to have him with us at Duke. | 1:56 | |
| There are several announcements of importance | 1:59 | |
| in the bulletin. I refer you to those. | 2:02 | |
| Again, let me say welcome to this university | 2:05 | |
| and to this service of worship. | 2:09 | |
| (choral music) | 2:26 | |
| (organ music) | 3:29 | |
| (congregation singing) | 4:04 | |
| - | O God, who through the resurrection of Jesus Christ | 7:36 |
| hast freed us from the power of darkness | 7:41 | |
| and brought us into the kingdom of thy love, | 7:45 | |
| grant we beseech thee that as by his death, | 7:49 | |
| he has recalled us into life. | 7:52 | |
| So by his abiding presence, | 7:55 | |
| he may bring us to the joys eternal. | 7:59 | |
| Through Him, who for our sakes died | 8:02 | |
| and rose again and is ever with us in power. | 8:05 | |
| The same thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. | 8:10 | |
| Amen. | 8:15 | |
| - | Let us pray. | 8:23 |
| Open our hearts and minds, O God, | 8:26 | |
| by the power of your Holy Spirit, | 8:29 | |
| so that as the Word is read and proclaimed, | 8:32 | |
| we might hear with joy what you say to us this day. | 8:35 | |
| Minister | Amen. | 8:40 |
| - | Be seated, please. | 8:41 |
| The first lessons is taken from the first letter of Peter. | 8:47 | |
| Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous | 8:52 | |
| for what is right? | 8:55 | |
| But even if you do suffer for righteousness' sake, | 8:57 | |
| you will be blessed. | 9:00 | |
| Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, | 9:02 | |
| but in your hearts' reverence, Christ is Lord. | 9:05 | |
| Always be prepared to make a defense to anyone | 9:09 | |
| who calls you to account for the hope that is in you. | 9:13 | |
| Yet do it with gentleness and reverence, | 9:17 | |
| and keep your conscience clear so that when you are abused, | 9:20 | |
| those who revile your good behavior in Christ | 9:25 | |
| may be put to shame. | 9:28 | |
| For it is better to suffer for doing right | 9:31 | |
| if that should be God's will, than for doing wrong. | 9:33 | |
| For Christ also died for sins once for all, | 9:38 | |
| the righteous for the unrighteous, | 9:42 | |
| that he might bring us to God. | 9:45 | |
| Being put the death in the flesh | 9:47 | |
| but made alive in the spirit. | 9:50 | |
| In which he went and preached to the spirits in prison | 9:53 | |
| who formerly did not obey. | 9:57 | |
| When God's patience waited in the days of Noah, | 9:59 | |
| during the building of the ark, in which a few, | 10:02 | |
| that is, eight persons, were saved through water. | 10:06 | |
| Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, | 10:09 | |
| not as a removal of dirt from the body | 10:15 | |
| but as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, | 10:18 | |
| through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, | 10:22 | |
| who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, | 10:26 | |
| with angels, authorities, and powers subject to him. | 10:30 | |
| This ends the reading of the first lesson. | 10:37 | |
| - | Our salter lesson for this morning is Psalm 23, | 10:53 |
| number 560 in the hymnal. | 10:58 | |
| Let us stand and read responsively. | 11:02 | |
| The Lord is my shepherd | 11:16 | |
| - | I shall not want. | 11:18 |
| - | He maketh me to lie down in green pastures. | 11:20 |
| - | He leads me beside still waters | 11:23 |
| - | He restoreth my soul. | 11:27 |
| - | He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. | 11:30 |
| - | Yea, though I walk through the valley | 11:35 |
| of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. | 11:37 | |
| - | For thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, | 11:41 |
| they comfort me. | 11:45 | |
| - | Thou preparest a table before me | 11:46 |
| in the presence of mine enemies. | 11:49 | |
| - | Thou anointest my head with oil, | 11:53 |
| my cup overflows. | 11:56 | |
| - | Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me | 11:57 |
| all the days of my life and I will dwell | 12:00 | |
| in the house of the Lord forever. | 12:04 | |
| (organ music) | 12:07 | |
| (congregation singing) | 12:15 | |
| - | The second lesson is taken from John, chapter 14 | 13:14 |
| verses 15 through 21. | 13:18 | |
| - | If you love me, you will keep my commandments. | 13:23 |
| And I will pray the Father, and he will give you | 13:27 | |
| another Counselor, to be with you forever. | 13:30 | |
| Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, | 13:33 | |
| because it neither sees him nor knows him. | 13:37 | |
| You know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. | 13:41 | |
| I will not leave you desolate, I will come to you. | 13:47 | |
| Yet a little while, and the world will see me no more, | 13:51 | |
| but you will see me. | 13:57 | |
| Because I live, you will live also. | 13:59 | |
| In that day you will know that I am in my Father, | 14:03 | |
| and you in me, and I in you. | 14:07 | |
| He who has my commandments and keeps them, | 14:11 | |
| he it is who loves me and he who loves me | 14:16 | |
| will be loved by my Father, and I will love him | 14:20 | |
| and manifest myself to him. | 14:25 | |
| This ends the reading of the second lesson. | 14:29 | |
| (choral music) | 14:44 | |
| - | Let me say what a great honor and delight it is | 17:54 |
| to be invited to take part in your worship this morning. | 17:58 | |
| The lesson from Acts is entitled the gospel lesson. | 18:03 | |
| But it's not inappropriately titled. | 18:08 | |
| Though it doesn't come from one of the four books | 18:12 | |
| that we normally call gospels, | 18:15 | |
| it is Paul's proclamation of the gospel | 18:17 | |
| to an unknown people, at least unknown to him, | 18:22 | |
| a proclamation about an unknown God, | 18:26 | |
| at least unknown in Athens. | 18:29 | |
| And so the gospel lesson comes in the midst of a story. | 18:33 | |
| While it begins at Acts 17, verse 22, | 18:37 | |
| it really begins much earlier. | 18:41 | |
| Paul barely escapes with his life from Beroea. | 18:44 | |
| Riotous crowds are there and he's secreted away, | 18:48 | |
| sent on to Athens. | 18:52 | |
| A city known for its philosophy and its religious fervor. | 18:55 | |
| He arrives and he's a bit troubled by | 19:01 | |
| all the shrines to the various gods around him. | 19:03 | |
| Being a good Jewish, well-trained man, | 19:07 | |
| he's troubled by what he would call idolatry. | 19:13 | |
| He teaches in the synagogues and he teaches in the streets. | 19:17 | |
| He goes to the marketplace and teaches, | 19:21 | |
| where the philosophers of that city, | 19:25 | |
| the Stoics and the Epicureans listen | 19:27 | |
| and they think, "My goodness, | 19:30 | |
| "this is a man teaching a new philosophy." | 19:33 | |
| And oh, how the Athenians loved new things. | 19:35 | |
| So they invited him to come to their university, | 19:41 | |
| the Areopagus, to give a lecture, | 19:45 | |
| to see if he might be admitted | 19:49 | |
| into that group of philosophers | 19:51 | |
| who were invited to dispute, to teach, | 19:53 | |
| to lecture in the community called the Areopagus. | 19:57 | |
| As he walked down the streets, there were still the shrines. | 20:02 | |
| Asclepius, the god of healing, with the intertwining snakes | 20:07 | |
| in whose shrine people went to sleep | 20:12 | |
| so they might dream of cures and thus be cured. | 20:15 | |
| Statues of Eros, that dark seducer and Psyche, the seduced, | 20:21 | |
| told that if she ever sees her lover's face, | 20:28 | |
| he'll disappear for good. | 20:31 | |
| And finally to the hill of Ares, the god of war. | 20:34 | |
| The hill on which the Areopagus sat, | 20:40 | |
| both the place and the community called the Areopagus. | 20:44 | |
| And there, on the very hill where | 20:50 | |
| the god of war was put on trial for murder, | 20:54 | |
| if you can imagine such a thing, | 20:59 | |
| Paul is invited to lecture. | 21:03 | |
| Our lesson today is the text of that | 21:05 | |
| sermon lecture that he offers. | 21:09 | |
| It reads this way. | 21:12 | |
| Paul stood up in the Areopagus in Athens | 21:15 | |
| and made this speech. | 21:18 | |
| "Athenians, I have noted how scrupulous you are | 21:20 | |
| "in religious matters. | 21:23 | |
| "As I walked around looking at your shrines, | 21:25 | |
| "I even found an altar bearing the inscription: | 21:27 | |
| "to an unknown god. | 21:31 | |
| "Well, what you thus worship as unknown, | 21:35 | |
| "I will now make known to you. | 21:39 | |
| "The god who created the world and everything in it, | 21:42 | |
| "who is lord of heaven and earth | 21:45 | |
| "does not live in shrines made by human hands. | 21:47 | |
| "Nor does this god receive the service of human beings | 21:51 | |
| "as if out of actual need of it. | 21:55 | |
| "For it is this God who gives to everyone every thing. | 21:58 | |
| "Yes, even life and breath. | 22:02 | |
| "God created the whole human race out of one stock | 22:06 | |
| "that we should inhabit the whole earth. | 22:09 | |
| "And God determined the ethics of every nation | 22:12 | |
| "and fixed the boundaries of every region. | 22:16 | |
| "This was done so that people might seek God. | 22:20 | |
| "Perhaps reach out and find God, | 22:23 | |
| "who is not far from any one of us. | 22:27 | |
| "For it is in God, as even your own poets said, | 22:31 | |
| "that we live and move and have our being. | 22:35 | |
| "And some of your writers have said | 22:39 | |
| "we are all children of this god. | 22:41 | |
| "Yes, since we are all God's own children, | 22:45 | |
| "we ought not to suppose that the deity | 22:48 | |
| "is like an image in gold or silver or stone, | 22:50 | |
| "a product of human craft and design. | 22:53 | |
| "In the past, God overlooked such ignorance | 22:57 | |
| "but now God commands all people everywhere to repent | 23:00 | |
| "for God has set the day for the world to be judged | 23:04 | |
| "and judged in righteousness by one appointed | 23:08 | |
| "and the choice of this judge has been validated | 23:11 | |
| "before everyone by God's raising him from the dead." | 23:15 | |
| Here ends the reading of the lesson. | 23:21 | |
| But the story doesn't end there. | 23:24 | |
| No, the story continues because some there | 23:27 | |
| take offense at what Paul has said. | 23:30 | |
| Some call it nonsense, and a handful we are told, | 23:32 | |
| including one fellow whose name is Dionysius, | 23:38 | |
| the name of another god | 23:43 | |
| follow after Paul | 23:47 | |
| and hear his teaching. | 23:51 | |
| And here ends the story. | 23:55 | |
| But then again, not quite because four centuries later | 23:57 | |
| an unknown Syrian monk | 24:01 | |
| writing a treatise on the name of God | 24:06 | |
| piling name upon name upon name upon name for God | 24:09 | |
| until finally, exhausted of names, | 24:15 | |
| we confront that unknown God of whom Paul spoke | 24:19 | |
| is given the name Dionysius the Areopagite | 24:25 | |
| that lonely convert from the Areopagus | 24:29 | |
| among the handful who followed after Paul. | 24:33 | |
| And here ends the story. | 24:40 | |
| But perhaps not. | 24:42 | |
| You see, Paul barely made it out of | 24:45 | |
| a nearby state university, | 24:48 | |
| who out of decency shall go unnamed | 24:52 | |
| to come to a Christian school called Duke University | 24:56 | |
| knowing that the people of Durham | 25:03 | |
| and the people in Christian schools | 25:06 | |
| take their religion very seriously | 25:08 | |
| and are very scrupulous about it | 25:10 | |
| as he came through the town, he noticed | 25:14 | |
| the various shrines along the way. | 25:15 | |
| One called Baptist, one called Methodist, | 25:18 | |
| one called Lutheran, one called Catholic, | 25:20 | |
| Assembly of God, Church of Christ. | 25:23 | |
| Passing the shrines, he knew | 25:25 | |
| that they were very scrupulous about their religion. | 25:28 | |
| Teaching in the churches and in the streets | 25:32 | |
| he was noticed by the intellectuals and the philosophers | 25:37 | |
| who gather around Duke University. | 25:41 | |
| And they invited him in to lecture | 25:45 | |
| to see if he might not be preaching some new | 25:48 | |
| and interesting philosophy because oh my, | 25:51 | |
| how the people of the university love new things. | 25:54 | |
| Don't we? | 26:00 | |
| And so he passed the shrines and came along to the Areo- | 26:04 | |
| to Duke chapel, I'm sorry. | 26:09 | |
| And along the way, he saw the various statues. | 26:14 | |
| Now, we realize they're not gods, we don't worship them. | 26:17 | |
| A stately looking man with a walking stick and cigar, | 26:20 | |
| that's hardly god-like. | 26:24 | |
| Stone statues of people along the entryway, | 26:29 | |
| but we couldn't even name them if we had to, most of us. | 26:32 | |
| A great colorful cloud of witnesses | 26:37 | |
| that surround us in stained glass, | 26:40 | |
| but I can't make out their names, can you? | 26:42 | |
| These are not gods, just decorations. | 26:46 | |
| And so he came to lecture | 26:50 | |
| and he began to lecture. | 26:53 | |
| He said, "People of Durham, | 26:58 | |
| I know that you are very religious people," | 27:01 | |
| and we just can't tell from his tone of voice | 27:04 | |
| whether he's serious or he's making fun. | 27:08 | |
| It could be that he has in mind someone like a doctor | 27:14 | |
| who grew up and lived in my mother's home county and town, | 27:19 | |
| Doctor Crow. | 27:23 | |
| Somebody asked Doctor Crow what kind of Christian he was. | 27:25 | |
| He said, "Well, I suppose I'm the regular kind. | 27:29 | |
| "I cuss when I get mad and pray when I get scared." | 27:32 | |
| What does this Paul mean? | 27:38 | |
| Are we religious or are we just the regular kind? | 27:40 | |
| I'm not so sure I like that. | 27:44 | |
| But he continues. | 27:48 | |
| Says, "I have seen all of these statues | 27:51 | |
| "and shrines along the way. | 27:54 | |
| "I even found one that said, to an unknown god." | 27:55 | |
| Well I've not seen that one. | 28:02 | |
| I mean, there are lots of unknown gods running around. | 28:04 | |
| Gods that lie beyond our knowledge and comprehension, | 28:09 | |
| but I don't remember a shrine to one around here, do you? | 28:12 | |
| No. | 28:16 | |
| But he says that he's going to make | 28:19 | |
| that unknown god known to us | 28:21 | |
| and he begins to tell a story about a god | 28:23 | |
| who creates the world and sets the boundaries of the nation | 28:26 | |
| and calls the people from all the nations. | 28:30 | |
| Not just one. | 28:33 | |
| All the nations | 28:35 | |
| into being. | 28:38 | |
| And about a god who is very near | 28:42 | |
| to each and every one of us. | 28:45 | |
| And he says that this has been made real | 28:49 | |
| by an itinerate Jewish preacher who told stories | 28:54 | |
| and did wonders some time ago in a foreign country | 28:57 | |
| and who finally was crucified and executed as a criminal | 29:03 | |
| and through that, proved God's love | 29:08 | |
| and that God can even rise up above the death that we fear. | 29:13 | |
| Well it didn't make much sense to me, | 29:19 | |
| I don't know about you. | 29:21 | |
| A handful followed him out of here | 29:24 | |
| but I don't remember any great crusade, | 29:26 | |
| I don't remember great long lines coming up to the altar. | 29:29 | |
| No, a handful. | 29:33 | |
| And so we went back about our business. | 29:37 | |
| He went on to other towns and we to our daily lives | 29:39 | |
| of rising and breakfast and working or classes. | 29:45 | |
| Evenings of television and newspapers, | 29:49 | |
| talking, studying and sleep again. | 29:52 | |
| It was not really a new thing he had to say after all, | 29:59 | |
| was it? | 30:03 | |
| Because you see, it didn't really apply to us. | 30:04 | |
| We don't worship these gods. | 30:07 | |
| No, if you wanna find Asclepius, | 30:11 | |
| you're gonna have to go to some faith healing service. | 30:13 | |
| Some snake handler. | 30:16 | |
| We have the Duke medical center here. | 30:18 | |
| We're beyond all that. | 30:21 | |
| No, if you want to find Eros and Psyche, | 30:24 | |
| you have to go to Fort Mill, South Carolina | 30:30 | |
| or Washington, D.C. | 30:33 | |
| We are not bothered by those things here, are we? | 30:34 | |
| If you want to find Ares, don't look on campus, | 30:41 | |
| look to the Middle East, look to the Persian Gulf, | 30:44 | |
| that's where you'll find the god of war. | 30:47 | |
| Why, my goodness, we're so civilized | 30:50 | |
| that we even put the gods of war on trial. | 30:52 | |
| We did it at a place called Nuremberg. | 30:57 | |
| We call them war crimes, we're above all that. | 31:00 | |
| It didn't apply to us. | 31:04 | |
| And so we went back home. | 31:09 | |
| But then came three o'clock in the morning | 31:14 | |
| and we lay in bed waiting for a spouse | 31:18 | |
| or a teenager to come home. | 31:21 | |
| Listening to every car that passes by, | 31:25 | |
| hoping that the sound of that car will be theirs | 31:28 | |
| and will pull into our driveway | 31:32 | |
| and yet fearing that the sound of that car will be theirs | 31:33 | |
| and will pull in our driveway. | 31:38 | |
| Hoping that we will know they're safe | 31:42 | |
| and yet fearing that when they walk through that door | 31:47 | |
| the same old conflicts and the same old recriminations | 31:51 | |
| will be there. | 31:54 | |
| The same old arguments and harsh tones | 31:55 | |
| and suddenly Ares is standing there right next to us. | 31:59 | |
| Or we sit by the bedside | 32:10 | |
| of a loved one | 32:14 | |
| in one of the finest medical centers anywhere in the world | 32:16 | |
| listening to the labored breathing that precedes death | 32:21 | |
| and hope and yet fear the end. | 32:27 | |
| Hope for the end of pain and yet fear the end of life. | 32:31 | |
| Because at some point that person has moved | 32:37 | |
| beyond medicine's cure. | 32:39 | |
| And perhaps in our half dozing and midnight sleep | 32:44 | |
| we hope for an Asclepius to walk in, snakes and staff | 32:48 | |
| and to do something to pull that person | 32:55 | |
| back beyond the threshold of death. | 32:58 | |
| Or we walk into a house that was once filled | 33:06 | |
| with the presence of another human being | 33:08 | |
| and now by chance or by choice, that presence is gone. | 33:13 | |
| And when we speak, it echoes as if all the furniture | 33:18 | |
| had been removed and the rugs rolled up. | 33:22 | |
| It echoes like an empty house | 33:26 | |
| and we cry out for the coming of Eros, | 33:29 | |
| once again the juice and joy of love, someone to touch. | 33:33 | |
| And yet, we're left with the echoes of our own voices. | 33:40 | |
| And so with the old idols laying | 33:47 | |
| in shreds and tatters around our feet, | 33:49 | |
| we call on God. | 33:51 | |
| We call out, "Father!" | 33:54 | |
| But immediately we see images of our own father | 33:55 | |
| and grandfather and know that that's not enough. | 33:59 | |
| So we call out, "Mother!" | 34:02 | |
| And we see the faces of mothers and grandmothers | 34:05 | |
| who've cared for us, and yet that's not enough. | 34:08 | |
| So we fall back on the old words. | 34:14 | |
| Rock, redeemer, shepherd. | 34:17 | |
| But they sound so old and so distant | 34:20 | |
| and there's no comfort in that. | 34:23 | |
| We've heard other words. | 34:28 | |
| We hear first cause, unmoved mover, master of the universe. | 34:30 | |
| And yet there's such a distance between those words and us. | 34:38 | |
| And finally, we call out, "Love!" | 34:44 | |
| Because after all, God is love. | 34:48 | |
| Isn't God love? | 34:51 | |
| And yet the very word vaporizes like the breath | 34:54 | |
| on a frosty morning and is gone as soon as it's spoken, | 34:57 | |
| disconnected from the body and the touch of love. | 35:01 | |
| And so, beyond the idols and beyond the names of God, | 35:09 | |
| with the echo of our voices still resounding in empty rooms, | 35:15 | |
| we put on our Sunday best and we come | 35:18 | |
| to sit in a place like this. | 35:21 | |
| And it doesn't really matter if you have | 35:25 | |
| a whole host of degrees after your name | 35:27 | |
| or if you never finished first grade | 35:29 | |
| because that hollow place is just as empty. | 35:31 | |
| And as we walk past the centers for psychology | 35:37 | |
| helping us as unknown people come to know ourselves, | 35:40 | |
| as we walk past the scientific buildings | 35:44 | |
| helping us to know our universe, | 35:47 | |
| as we come to the chapel helping us to know God, we hope. | 35:49 | |
| We simply gather and we tell our stories, once again. | 35:55 | |
| We say, "Once upon a time there was a God who knelt down | 36:01 | |
| "and in clay fashioned a human form | 36:04 | |
| "and blew into it the breath of life. | 36:08 | |
| "And that wasn't just some ancient ancestor, that was me." | 36:12 | |
| And it sounds like a fairy tale and we want to believe it | 36:17 | |
| and when we're finished telling it seems | 36:22 | |
| almost as if the taste of earth is on our tongue. | 36:24 | |
| And we tell the story of a god who reached into Egypt, | 36:31 | |
| into bondage and slavery, | 36:37 | |
| and took the people out into freedom | 36:39 | |
| and lived with them even when they abused that freedom. | 36:42 | |
| And it sounds like a dream come true and we wish it was us | 36:47 | |
| and suddenly we look down at our hands | 36:51 | |
| and there's the dirt of mud bricks beneath our fingernails | 36:54 | |
| and we know that perhaps we are the people. | 36:59 | |
| And remembering that strange lecturer who came here, | 37:05 | |
| we tell the story of an itinerate Jewish preacher | 37:08 | |
| who worked wonders and told wondrous tales | 37:13 | |
| and died like a criminal | 37:18 | |
| and rose above death | 37:21 | |
| and it's too much to fathom. | 37:26 | |
| We can't quite wrap our minds around it; | 37:29 | |
| We can't quite find the image; | 37:31 | |
| We can't quite find the shrine to place it in; | 37:34 | |
| and so suddenly we're jettisoned off | 37:37 | |
| into a universe beyond what we can know. | 37:40 | |
| And in the depth of a people unknown | 37:47 | |
| to themselves and others, we encounter an unknown god. | 37:49 | |
| And it is this God, beyond all idols and words | 37:55 | |
| and names of God | 38:01 | |
| in whom we finally live | 38:04 | |
| and move | 38:07 | |
| and have our being. | 38:10 | |
| And in nothing and no one less. | 38:12 | |
| (organ music) | 38:28 | |
| (congregation singing) | 38:54 | |
| Minister | The lord be with you. | 40:50 |
| - | And also with you. | 40:52 |
| - | Let us pray. | 40:53 |
| Remember, O Lord, thy church upon earth. | 41:06 | |
| Deepen her influence and extend her power for good | 41:11 | |
| til the kingdoms of this world become | 41:16 | |
| the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. | 41:19 | |
| We pray this morning for our beloved land | 41:25 | |
| for our leaders and governors | 41:30 | |
| and for all who have part in public service. | 41:33 | |
| Make them pure in motive, wise in council | 41:37 | |
| and strong in action. | 41:42 | |
| Doing right in the fear of thy holy name. | 41:44 | |
| On this memorial day weekend, O God, | 41:49 | |
| we remember with gratitude all those | 41:53 | |
| who have laid down their lives | 41:56 | |
| in the service of their country. | 41:59 | |
| May no forgetfulness of ours make them to have perished | 42:03 | |
| as though they had never been | 42:09 | |
| to the end that these dead shall not have died in vain. | 42:12 | |
| May we receive with fit humility | 42:17 | |
| the fruits of their sacrifice. | 42:21 | |
| Father in heaven, look down in mercy | 42:26 | |
| upon our distraught and fevered world. | 42:29 | |
| Forgive the mistaken ambitions, the selfish passions, | 42:35 | |
| and the presumptuous claims of men and women. | 42:41 | |
| Remove all suspicion and bitterness from among the nations | 42:46 | |
| and bring them to peace and concord | 42:52 | |
| by the redeeming love of Christ. | 42:55 | |
| Have mercy, O Lord, upon those | 43:00 | |
| who are passing through sore trial. | 43:02 | |
| The poor, the sick, the anxious, the oppressed. | 43:05 | |
| Those who are in danger, | 43:10 | |
| especially those who suffered the ravishes | 43:13 | |
| of nature in Texas this week. | 43:19 | |
| And those families of persons who lost their lives | 43:24 | |
| on the Stark. | 43:30 | |
| Inspire in us and in all men and women | 43:36 | |
| the will to help our suffering brethren. | 43:40 | |
| Heal, protect and strengthen them according to their need. | 43:46 | |
| Comfort those in sorrow with the comfort | 43:52 | |
| which is in Christ Jesus our lord. | 43:55 | |
| Finally, O God, we pray for our own dear ones | 44:01 | |
| wheresoever they are this day, that surrounded by thy love, | 44:07 | |
| they may be kept in health and joy | 44:14 | |
| and abide in safety and peace. | 44:18 | |
| All of these things we ask | 44:22 | |
| through and in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. | 44:25 | |
| Amen. | 44:31 | |
| (solemn organ music) | 44:42 | |
| (soft choral music) | 46:25 | |
| (lively organ music) | 52:07 | |
| (congregation singing) | 52:24 | |
| ♪ Hallelujah ♪ | 53:16 | |
| - | Almighty and most merciful God | 53:29 |
| from whom cometh every good and perfect gift, | 53:33 | |
| we give thee praise and thanks for all thy mercies. | 53:39 | |
| Thy goodness hath created us, | 53:45 | |
| thy bounty hath sustained us, | 53:49 | |
| thy discipline hath chastened us, | 53:54 | |
| thy patience hath born with us, | 53:58 | |
| thy love hath redeemed us. | 54:04 | |
| Give us hearts to love and serve thee | 54:08 | |
| and enable us to show our thankfulness | 54:13 | |
| for all thy goodness and mercy. | 54:17 | |
| Let these gifts which we bring truly symbolize | 54:21 | |
| our intention to give up ourselves to thy service. | 54:26 | |
| And cheerfully submitting in all things, | 54:32 | |
| to do thy blessed will. | 54:37 | |
| Now send the power of thy Holy Spirit | 54:40 | |
| on us and on these gifts, | 54:43 | |
| and let us be bold to pray the prayer | 54:48 | |
| Jesus taught his disciples saying, | 54:52 | |
| Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. | 54:55 | |
| Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, | 55:00 | |
| on earth as it is in heaven. | 55:04 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread | 55:07 | |
| and forgive us our trespasses | 55:10 | |
| as we forgive those who trespass against us | 55:13 | |
| and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. | 55:17 | |
| For thine is the kingdom, and the power, | 55:22 | |
| and the glory forever. | 55:25 | |
| Amen. | 55:28 | |
| (celebratory organ music) | 55:32 | |
| (congregation singing) | 56:05 | |
| - | And now unto God's gracious mercy and protection, | 59:08 |
| we commit you | 59:12 | |
| and the blessing of God, almighty Father, | 59:13 | |
| Son and Holy Spirit | 59:16 | |
| be with you both now and forever more. | 59:19 | |
| Amen. | 59:23 | |
| (choir singing) | 59:28 | |
| ♪ Amen ♪ | 59:53 | |
| (lively organ music) | 1:00:05 |