William H. Willimon - "Remember Not...Remember Me" (September 27, 1987)

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	(beautiful organ music)	0:01
-	Good morning and welcome to Duke Chapel.	4:41
	We're glad that you're with us.	4:43
	We welcome as a special soloist today, Dr. Eric Meyers.	4:46
	In honor of the Jewish High Holy days,	4:50
	our choir is singing a selection	4:52
	from Ernest Bloch's Sacred Service.	4:55
	By the way, the choir will be singing	4:57
	this service in it's entirety next spring	5:00
	with Dr. Meyers as cantor.	5:03
	Remind you that you're invited for coffee and conversation	5:07
	immediately after the service in the Page Art Gallery	5:10
	and we hope you'll join us for that.	5:15
	And now let us continue our worship.	5:18
	(choral singing)	5:24
-	Remembering that we have failed God and one another,	11:27
	let us turn to number 723 in the back of the hymn book,	11:32
	and seated make our confession to Almighty God.	11:38
	Have mercy upon us, oh God	11:53
	according to thy loving kindness.	11:56
	According to the multitude of thy tender mercies,	11:59
	blot out our transgressions.	12:03
	Wash us thoroughly from our iniquities	12:05
	and cleanse us from our sins,	12:09
	for we acknowledge our transgressions	12:12
	and our sin is ever before us.	12:14
	Create in us clean hearts, oh God,	12:17
	and renew a right spirit within us.	12:21
	Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.	12:24
	Hear the good news.	12:28
	Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.	12:30
	That is God's own proof of His love towards us.	12:34
	In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.	12:38
Crowd	In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.	12:42
-	Let us pray.	13:09
	Open our hearts and minds, oh God,	13:11
	by the power of Your Holy Spirit,	13:14
	so that as the Word is read and proclaimed,	13:17
	we might hear with joy what You say to us this day.	13:20
	Amen.	13:24
-	The first lesson is taken from the book of Ezekiel.	13:34
	The word of the Lord came to me again.	13:40
	What do you mean by repeating this proverb	13:44
	concerning the land of Israel?	13:47
	The fathers have eaten sour grapes,	13:49
	and the children's teeth are set on edge.	13:52
	As I live, says the Lord God,	13:57
	this proverb shall no more be used by you in Israel.	13:59
	Behold, all souls are mine.	14:04
	The soul of the father as well as	14:09
	the soul of the son is mine.	14:11
	The soul that sins shall die.	14:15
	Yet you say the way of the Lord is not just.	14:19
	Hear now, oh house of Israel.	14:25
	Is not My way just?	14:27
	Is it not your way that is not just?	14:31
	When a righteous man turns away from his righteousness	14:35
	and commits iniquity he shall die for it.	14:39
	For the iniquity which he hath committed he shall die.	14:44
	Again, when a wicked man turns away	14:49
	from the wickedness he has committed,	14:52
	and does what is lawful and right,	14:55
	he shall live.	14:57
	He shall save his life,	15:00
	because he has considered	15:04
	and turned away from all the transgressions	15:06
	which he has committed.	15:09
	He surely shall live.	15:10
	He shall not die.	15:14
	Yet the house of Israel says	15:17
	the way of the Lord is not just.	15:19
	Oh house of Israel, are my ways not just?	15:23
	Is it not your ways that are not just?	15:28
	Therefore, I will judge you oh house of Israel.	15:33
	Everyone according to his ways says the Lord God.	15:37
	Repent and turn away from your transgressions,	15:41
	lest iniquity be your ruin.	15:45
	Cast away from you all the transgressions	15:47
	which have committed against me,	15:50
	and get yourselves a new heart,	15:53
	and a new spirit.	15:57
	Why will you die, oh house of Israel?	16:00
	For I have no pleasure in death of anyone,	16:04
	says the Lord God.	16:08
	So turn away and live.	16:10
	This ends the reading of the first lesson.	16:15
-	The reading from the Psalter is number 562	16:28
	in the back of your hymn book.	16:31
	Please stand.	16:33
	To thee, oh Lord, I lift up my soul.	16:41
	Let me not be put to shame.	16:47
	Make me to know thy ways, oh Lord.	16:53
	Lead me in thy truth and teach me.	16:58
	Be mindful of thy mercy, oh Lord,	17:08
	and of thy steadfast love.	17:10
	Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions.	17:15
	Good and upright is the Lord.	17:27
	He leads the humble in what is right.	17:33
	All the paths of the Lord	17:39
	are steadfast love and faithfulness.	17:40
	For thy namesake, oh Lord.	17:48
	Who is the one that fears the Lord?	17:53
	The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear Him.	18:00
	May integrity and uprightness preserve me.	18:07
	(uplifting organ music)	18:13
	(choral singing)	18:22
-	Our second lesson is taken	19:21
	from Paul's letter to the Philippians.	19:23
	So if there is any encouragement in Christ,	19:29
	any incentive of love, any participation in the spirit,	19:33
	any affection and sympathy, complete my joy,	19:38
	my being of same mind, having the same love.	19:43
	Being in full accord of one mind.	19:48
	Do nothing from selfishness or conceit,	19:52
	but in humility count others better than yourselves,	19:56
	lest each of you look not only to his own interest,	20:00
	but also to the interest of others.	20:04
	Have this mind among yourselves,	20:07
	which is yours in Christ Jesus,	20:10
	who though He was in the form of God,	20:13
	did not count equality with God as a thing to be grasped,	20:17
	but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.	20:21
	Being born into the likeness of man,	20:28
	and being found in human form,	20:32
	he humbled himself and became obedient even unto death.	20:34
	Even death on a cross.	20:40
	Therefore, God has highly exalted Him	20:44
	and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name.	20:47
	That at the name of Jesus,	20:52
	every knee should bow in Heaven	20:55
	and on Earth and under Earth,	20:58
	and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.	21:01
	To the glory of God, the Father.	21:06
	Therefore, my beloved,	21:10
	as you have always obeyed,	21:13
	so now, not only in my presence,	21:15
	but much more in my absence,	21:19
	work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.	21:22
	For God is at work in you,	21:27
	both to will and to work for His good pleasure.	21:30
	This ends the reading of the second lesson.	21:39
	The gospel is taken from Matthew.	21:42
	What do you think?	21:49
	A man had two sons	21:51
	and he went to the first and said	21:54
	Son, go work in the vineyard today.	21:56
	And he answered, I will not.	21:59
	But afterwards, he repented and went.	22:03
	And he went to the second and said the same thing.	22:07
	And he answered, I go sir.	22:10
	But did not go.	22:14
	Which of the two did the will of his father?	22:17
	And they said, the first.	22:20
	And Jesus said to them,	22:24
	Truly, I say to you the tax collectors	22:26
	and the harlots go into the kingdom of God before you.	22:31
	For John came to you in the ways of righteousness	22:36
	and you did not believe him,	22:39
	but the tax collectors and the harlots believed him,	22:42
	and even when you saw it,	22:46
	you did not afterwards repent and believe.	22:49
	This ends the reading of the gospel.	22:55
	(choral singing)	23:19
-	As I ponder what to preach to you each Sunday,	26:36
	only rarely does some	26:43
	word leap from the Biblical text	26:46
	and grab me by the throat, shake me up and down	26:49
	and demand to be preached.	26:52
	And such was the case today.	26:55
	When I looked over the assigned lessons for this Sunday,	26:58
	nothing caught my attention,	27:01
	until I looked at the assigned Psalm for the day,	27:04
	and I read the phrase:	27:10
	Remember not the sins of my youth	27:14
	or my transgressions.	27:19
	According to thy steadfast love,	27:22
	remember me.	27:27
	And I was hooked.	27:31
	It was too good a phrase to let pass in a university chapel.	27:32
	Remember not the sins of my youth.	27:37
	What an evocative phrase.	27:41
	Remember not the sins of my youth.	27:42
	And what are these sins of the youth	27:47
	for which the psalmist begs divine amnesia?	27:49
	Sins of the youth.	27:53
	I see smoke filled rooms,	27:55
	sleazy dives down by the railroad station	27:59
	known as Sam's Bar and Grill,	28:02
	all night binges followed by aching head.	28:05
	Road trips to descents into Hell to God knows where.	28:09
	"Animal House" redone in Durham.	28:13
	Encounters in the backseats of Chevrolets.	28:16
	Sins of the youth.	28:19
	About the age of a Duke Sophomore or Junior, Saint Agustine	28:24
	who spent the rest of his life	28:30
	paying back God for debts incurred	28:31
	during youthful degradation,	28:34
	Saint Augustine prayed	28:37
	Oh God, make me chaste,	28:40
	but not yet.	28:45
	(laughter)	28:46
	For this he was voted the patron saint	28:48
	of all college students.	28:50
	Sins of the youth.	28:52
	Every year during the chapel choir's presentation	28:56
	of Handel's Messiah there is that point in the Messiah when	29:00
	a boy soprano steps forward and sings of corruption.	29:05
	He suffered not corruption.	29:10
	He suffered not corruption.	29:12
	I, with Ben Smith, have often wondered	29:15
	what does he know of corruption?	29:18
	What does an 11 year old know of such things?	29:21
	Let him come back when his voice has changed	29:23
	and he's a Duke Sophomore	29:26
	and then he can speak of corruption	29:28
	with personal conviction.	29:30
	Sins of the youth.	29:32
	Speaking at a little college somewhere out in the Midwest	29:34
	in a town so small it didn't even merit a dot on the map,	29:37
	I wondered aloud,	29:43
	what on Earth do they do here	29:48
	for entertainment on the weekends?	29:49
	Oh preacher, don't even ask	29:53
	said the chaplain.	29:56
	Every person over 10 or 12 has some secret room somewhere.	30:00
	Some trunk hidden in the attic	30:06
	or casket buried deep in the basement of the soul.	30:09
	Closed, dusty, cluttered with dark moments.	30:15
	Memories we would as soon forget.	30:20
	And the older you get the more memory you have	30:25
	to forget.	30:30
	The more you have to put into that trunk,	30:32
	that secret room, that grave.	30:34
	The older you grow, the more you have to forget.	30:39
	What is remorse, but bitter memory?	30:44
	And what is guilt, but accusing memory?	30:48
	I know that in my counseling with people	30:56
	the most frequent kind of pain	30:57
	with which I come into contact	31:00
	is suffering brought on by memory.	31:04
	I mean, for what do you think we have this nervousness,	31:09
	this sleeplessness, this tossing and turning,	31:12
	this drug taking, except	31:15
	from the feelings of fear and anxiety	31:19
	brought on by memory too painful to bear.	31:22
	Oh, we fill our rooms with trophies,	31:27
	and we hang diplomas on our walls,	31:31
	and we frame pictures and we wear class rings,	31:33
	and we put up blue ribbons of good memories.	31:37
	But deeply hidden from public view,	31:44
	in the cellar of the soul	31:49
	is where we stuff the memories too painful to remember.	31:50
	We handle undesirable memories	31:57
	by attempting to forget them.	31:59
	Let's agree just to forget about it.	32:03
	Let's both act as if this never really happened.	32:05
	Why dwell on the past?	32:09
	What is done is done.	32:11
	Let's talk about something more pleasant.	32:13
	Remember not the sins of my youth.	32:18
	But bad memory unremembered	32:23
	pushed back into the secret place of ourselves	32:27
	can do much harm,	32:31
	because the unconscious has no digestive tract.	32:33
	It's not as if we can just swallow hard	32:38
	on our bad memories and be done with them.	32:40
	I mean we've tried to do that time and again as a nation.	32:47
	We've tried to just forget about past national traumas	32:50
	and we've tried to do it as individuals.	32:54
	But when we try to forget painful memories,	32:59
	we often become strangers to ourselves.	33:01
	Having cut our history down	33:07
	to just what is pleasant, and manageable and cheerful.	33:09
	We don't know ourselves.	33:15
	As Henri Nouwen says,	33:18
	"To try to live our lives without memory	33:21
	is to turn our back on our best teacher."	33:23
	We cannot reduce	33:30
	our history to the stuff of daydreams	33:33
	and live out the nightmares.	33:36
	Oh we wish that we were over and done with our past,	33:41
	but our past is never over and done with us.	33:45
	Not yet, we're not the escape artist we wish we were.	33:49
	Oh we chatter, we make jokes, we turn on the radio,	33:54
	we take a drink, we try to live just for today.	33:58
	But then, just when we think we are cut loose,	34:02
	there is that face, that sideward glance	34:05
	or some snippet of an old tune	34:10
	long since played out.	34:13
	And we remember.	34:18
	And we wish to God that we could forget.	34:21
	A while back, I was accosted by an alumnus of my college.	34:26
	We were students there together,	34:31
	and knowing that I am now a trustee of the place,	34:33
	he sought to collar me.	34:36
	Today's students are a disgrace, he said.	34:39
	You know what is going on in the dormitories of our college?	34:42
	I tell you, you trustees should stick by your guns,	34:46
	and you should tell them to shape up or ship out.	34:49
	You ought to tighten things up.	34:51
	Unfortunately for him,	34:56
	my memory had not been so dulled by the years.	34:57
	Apparently I remembered his past better than he.	35:02
	(laughter)	35:05
	And I said to him,	35:08
	Tighten the rules?	35:10
	It seems that I remember when we were there	35:14
	there were strict rules against dormitory visitation	35:15
	by members of the opposite sex.	35:18
	He said yes, and there ought to be today.	35:21
	And I said, well I do remember a certain evening	35:25
	in April of 1967, or was it April 1968	35:27
	when someone down the hall from me	35:32
	had a visit from someone of the opposite?	35:35
	He wished to God that I had forgot.	35:43
	I know in seminary, it never failed.	35:48
	The person, the chief radical,	35:52
	the chief theological radical on the hall,	35:54
	the one who was always ranting and raving	35:56
	about these stupid conservatives,	35:59
	these backward fundamentalists was always	36:00
	a former fundamentalist himself.	36:07
	He was raving and raging against his own background,	36:11
	his own roots, his own memory.	36:14
	At my high school reunion,	36:20
	with the band belting out	36:23
	oldies-but-goodies in the background she asked,	36:25
	You weren't always planning on being a preacher, were you?	36:32
	I mean you weren't thinking about it	36:36
	back in high school, were you?	36:38
	And I said, no I don't suppose I was.	36:41
	Why do you ask?	36:44
	Good, she said.	36:47
	That at least makes me feel much better.	36:47
	Remember not the sins of my youth.	36:53
	Remember not, not just the things we did on Saturday night,	36:57
	but what we did all week long.	37:00
	Remember not the way we treated our parents,	37:02
	and the people, the people whose names we can't even recall,	37:06
	whom we offended by thought, word and deed.	37:10
	By things left undone, and by things done.	37:17
	Dare we to remember, even for a moment,	37:21
	and to admit to the truth	37:27
	of the ancient words of confession.	37:29
	We have followed too much the devices	37:33
	and desires of our own hearts.	37:35
	There is no health in us.	37:40
	We are not worthy to be called thy children.	37:44
	And maybe that's why we always begin	37:50
	the service of worship with a prayer of confession,	37:54
	because there's so much we need to forget to get in here.	37:57
	We wish to God that we could forget,	38:03
	and I hate to tell you, but wishing that you could forget	38:08
	is certainly not over and done with when you're 21 or 31,	38:10
	you've just begun to want to forget.	38:14
	If children must yearn for their parent's forgiveness,	38:17
	how much more ought parents	38:20
	to yearn for their children's forgiveness?	38:23
	Because some day every parent looks	38:29
	at his or her grown children and thinks not	38:31
	look at all that I've done for you.	38:34
	But thinks look at all I've done to you.	38:37
	How can there ever be enough forgetfulness to go around?	38:46
	A student said of his younger sister	38:52
	now in her second year of therapy,	38:55
	chemically dependent in misery.	38:59
	If she could only learn to forgive our parents	39:03
	for what they did to her or they didn't do to her.	39:07
	If she could only learn to forget.	39:13
	He hoped that the therapist would help her to remember	39:17
	in order that she might then forget.	39:20
	And if we yearn for the forgetfulness of other people,	39:26
	how much more ought we to yearn	39:32
	for the forgetfulness of God?	39:34
	As another Psalm asks, Oh Lord,	39:40
	if thou should count our iniquities, God who could stand?	39:45
	If God is omniscient, omnipresent,	39:52
	all-knowing and all-wise,	39:56
	think of the suffering that God suffers because of us.	39:58
	I mean, at least eventually many of our old wounds heal.	40:04
	If you live long enough, amnesia sets in.	40:09
	And we achieve, therefore, a kind of relative peace.	40:12
	I can't even remember what I had for lunch yesterday,	40:18
	much less whom I offended.	40:20
	But God?	40:23
	If God remembers everything,	40:25
	God must suffer terribly.	40:30
	I mean, you wonder how in the world	40:33
	God can endure the silence of the universe.	40:35
	If God can still hear the cries of Hiroshima,	40:38
	if God still remembers the agony of Auschwitz,	40:42
	if God can still hear the prayers	40:46
	of the Battle of Hastings,	40:48
	and on the field of Waterloo,	40:50
	and last moments, unkind thought, or deed of meanness,	40:52
	how can God stand it?	40:56
	Does God have the alleged memory of an elephant?	41:02
	Smith?	41:06
	Isn't that E. Smith?	41:07
	Yes, let's see.	41:09
	Gabriel, bring me the file on E. Smith.	41:10
	Lord, who could stand?	41:14
	Jesus meets the woman at the well,	41:18
	and the woman says something about my husband	41:22
	and Jesus says I believe you've had five husbands,	41:24
	and the man you're living with now is not your husband.	41:31
	And she ran back to town and said	41:36
	come see a man who told me everything I've ever done!	41:38
	And so it is in this context that the Psalmist prays	41:45
	remember not my transgressions.	41:51
	Remember not the sins of my youth.	41:55
	Forget it.	42:00
	We wish to God that God would forget.	42:02
	Someday each of us stands before our father, our mother,	42:07
	and looks into their eyes and sees reflected back our youth.	42:12
	The demands we made, the unkind words we spoke,	42:20
	the ways we disappointed, and the ways we hurt	42:25
	without even trying to hurt.	42:28
	And we silently ask for their forgetfulness.	42:32
	Their forgiveness.	42:37
	And someday, each one of us must ask	42:41
	for the same forgetfulness of God.	42:45
	Remember not.	42:49
	And will God forget?	42:53
	I mean, you could observe our delight	42:57
	in remembering, recalling, recollecting	42:59
	somebody else's sordid past.	43:02
	What if God's like that?	43:04
	Smith?	43:07
	Is that E. Smith?	43:08
	That's E. Smith, the banker, isn't it?	43:10
	Oh, no, if memory serves me correctly,	43:11
	I think it's E. Smith the philanderer.	43:15
	Citizen of the year?	43:19
	Oh well, I do think I remember some little trouble	43:21
	with the IRS sometime ago.	43:24
	Presidential candidate?	43:28
	Wasn't there something back there	43:29
	about some law review article something?	43:31
	Look at how we delight in remembering	43:36
	not only the sins of youth,	43:38
	but of middle age and any other age	43:39
	because our remembrance is a way	43:42
	of keeping people pinned down and tied to their place.	43:44
	A way of putting and keeping others	43:48
	where we think they ought to be.	43:50
	Oh they may try to break free.	43:53
	They may try to cut loose,	43:55
	but as long as we remember, they're done for.	43:57
	They are always enslaved by our remembrance.	43:59
	One day Thomas Aquinas was lecturing	44:09
	to some of his students on the greatness,	44:12
	the omnipotence of God,	44:15
	and after he finished the lecture,	44:17
	one smart aleck raised his hand and said	44:19
	Doctor Aquinas, is there anyway in which God is limited?	44:21
	And the great teacher said yes.	44:27
	And there was a shocked hush in the class.	44:31
	Yes, he said.	44:34
	Even God Almighty	44:38
	cannot make the past not to have been.	44:41
	I mean, even God can't do that.	44:47
	What's past is done, and what's done is forever.	44:50
	No wonder the Psalmist prays against divine memnasis	44:59
	and prays for forgetfulness.	45:04
	I'll tell you who you're real friends are.	45:10
	A friend is someone who knows you,	45:13
	who remembers you, perhaps better	45:16
	than even you remember yourself,	45:19
	but who doesn't remember.	45:24
	Friends are those who discretely forget,	45:28
	before whom certain things don't have to be dredged up,	45:32
	certain things don't have to be recollected.	45:35
	For the sake of love, they forget.	45:39
	A friend is someone who forgets what you've done	45:45
	in order to remember who you are.	45:52
	Remember not the sins of my youth.	45:58
	Remember me.	46:03
	Isn't that what each of us really wants from God	46:06
	when it's all said and done?	46:09
	That God will love us enough to forget	46:11
	what we've done and left undone	46:14
	in thought, word and deed in order to remember who we are.	46:18
	On our knees with outstretched, empty hands,	46:26
	that's what we want.	46:33
	It is this divine forgetfulness	46:36
	which is called forgiveness in scripture.	46:38
	The greatest mercy we want from God	46:44
	is to forget in order to remember.	46:48
	Smith?	46:53
	Is that E. Smith?	46:55
	Gabriel, forget the file.	46:58
	I remember him.	47:02
	I remember.	47:06
	Hanging on the cross,	47:09
	one thief mocked Jesus.	47:13
	The other thief said,	47:17
	man don't you fear God?	47:18
	We deserve what we're getting but He doesn't.	47:21
	And then the thief said,	47:26
	Jesus,	47:29
	remember me.	47:32
	Remember not the sins.	47:37
	Remember me.	47:41
	It's the last deepest prayer we utter.	47:44
	A couple of Psalms later, the Psalmist says,	47:51
	if my father and my mother forget me,	47:56
	Lord you'll take me.	48:01
	Remember not the sins of my youth.	48:07
	According to thy steadfast love,	48:11
	remember me.	48:15
	Amen.	48:18
	(uplifting organ music)	48:27
	(choral singing)	48:56
Rev. Noren	The Lord be with you.	51:08
	Let us pray.	51:11
	Almighty God, our Father	51:24
	with the tender love of a parent,	51:28
	would draw all Your sons and daughters to Yourself.	51:29
	Give to all who seek You open and trusting hearts	51:35
	to respond to Your gracious word.	51:39
	We pray for all who are hindered	51:43
	from knowing the fullness of Your love	51:45
	because of fear or bondage to memory	51:49
	or cynicism or half-heartedness	51:54
	and we pray Your forgiveness when we have reinforced	51:59
	or justified those barriers in other's lives.	52:02
	By the power of the risen Christ,	52:07
	reconcile them and us to Yourself.	52:10
	God, our ruler, You behold all nations of the world	52:15
	and know their pain.	52:20
	Their longing for peace.	52:22
	Their mistrust of one another.	52:25
	Deliver us from pride and selfishness	52:29
	in our dealings with one another.	52:32
	Give to our president and to the leaders of all nations	52:35
	wisdom and strength to do Your will.	52:39
	Fill them with the love of the truth and righteousness	52:45
	which come from You.	52:48
	Comfort and sustain all who live	52:51
	in places torn by war and unrest.	52:54
	Let Your kingdom come,	52:59
	and Your will be done.	53:02
	God, our strength and joy,	53:06
	You have built Your church on Jesus Christ,	53:09
	the sure foundation,	53:12
	and called us to be in mission.	53:13
	We pray for all ministers	53:18
	and lay people in Your church around the world.	53:20
	Give us and them singleness of heart in serving You.	53:25
	Unite us in our one Lord, one faith, one baptism.	53:31
	Through the power and gifts of Your Holy Spirit,	53:37
	equip us for ministry in and to the world.	53:40
	Teaching Your word, healing the sick,	53:44
	nurturing the young, comforting the afflicted,	53:49
	laying down our lives for the sake of the Gospel,	53:55
	or to whatever tasks You call us.	53:59
	These things we ask through Jesus Christ, our Lord	54:02
	who with You and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns forever.	54:06
	One God, world without end.	54:11
	Amen.	54:14
	And now let us bring to God our tithes and offerings.	54:18
	(somber organ music)	54:24
	(triumphant organ music)	56:09
	(choral singing)	56:17
-	Oh Lord, we pray You will pour out Your Holy Spirit	1:03:31
	upon these are gifts and upon us as we offer ourselves	1:03:34
	that in all things we may glorify Your name.	1:03:40
	Through Jesus Christ our Lord,	1:03:43
	who taught us to pray together saying	1:03:46
	Our Father who art in Heaven,	1:03:49
	hallowed be thy name.	1:03:52
	Thy kingdom come.	1:03:54
	Thy will be done	1:03:55
	on Earth as it is in Heaven.	1:03:57
	Give us this day our daily bread,	1:03:59
	and forgive us our trespasses	1:04:02
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	1:04:05
	And lead us not into temptation	1:04:08
	but deliver us from evil	1:04:11
	for thine is the kingdom	1:04:13
	and the power	1:04:14
	and the glory forever.	1:04:15
	Amen.	1:04:18
	(uplifting organ music)	1:04:21
	(choral singing)	1:04:59
-	Now may the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ	1:08:14
	and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit	1:08:18
	be with you now and always.	1:08:22
	(choral singing)	1:08:27

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Remember Not...Remember Me" (September 27, 1987)

Description:

Sermon start time: 26:36. Sermon end time: 48:19.
Preaching from Psalm 25, where the psalmist requests that God “remember not the sins of my youth,” the preacher argues that God chooses to forget human sin despite God’s omniscience. Such divine forgetfulness holds within it the transformative and redemptive power of forgiveness. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “A friend is someone who forgets what you’ve done in order to remember who you are…Isn’t that what each of us really wants from God when it’s all said and done? That God will love us enough to forget what we’ve done and left undone in thought, word, and deed, in order to remember who we are.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4qf8k05j

Date:

September 27, 1987

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0050
ref8400_5oi
uachapelsermaud
duke:321527
dcrmv001050
ark:/87924/r4qf8k05j
cbce9f65-ea5a-4494-8ddb-34a59db7d12b

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:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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William H. Willimon - "Remember Not...Remember Me" (September 27, 1987)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Remember Not...Remember Me" (September 27, 1987)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "Remember Not...Remember Me" (September 27, 1987)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives

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