Samuel Proctor - "The Cosmic Intervention of God" (March 13, 1994)

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	(choir singing)	0:02
-	Good morning.	3:11
	We'd like to welcome you to Duke Chapel	3:12
	on this fourth Sunday in Lent.	3:14
	We are grateful to the UNCW Chamber Singers	3:17
	and their director, Doctor Joe Hickman,	3:21
	for their musical leadership this morning.	3:23
	We're also pleased to welcome for a return visit,	3:26
	Doctor Samuel Proctor,	3:28
	who is our distinguished guest preacher for today.	3:30
	Doctor Proctor is currently serving	3:33
	as Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry	3:36
	at Duke Divinity School.	3:39
	Let us continue our worship with a greeting.	3:41
	Please stand.	3:43
	Create in me a clean heart, O God.	3:51
Congregation	And renew a right spirit within me.	3:55
-	Open my lips, O Lord.	3:58
Congregation	And my mouth shall proclaim your praise.	4:01
	(organ music)	4:05
	(choir singing)	4:34
-	Please be seated.	8:25
	Let us join together in the prayer for illumination.	8:37
	Open our hearts and minds, O God,	8:42
	by the power of your Holy Spirit	8:45
	so that as the word is read and proclaimed,	8:48
	we may hear your message to us this Lenten season, amen.	8:51
	The Old Testament reading is taken from the book of Numbers,	8:58
	chapter 21, beginning with the fourth verse.	9:02
	From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea	9:10
	to go around the land of Edom,	9:15
	but the people became impatient on the way.	9:18
	The people spoke against God and against Moses,	9:22
	why have you brought us up out of Egypt	9:25
	to die in the wilderness?	9:28
	For there is no food and no water,	9:30
	and we detest this miserable food.	9:33
	Then the Lord sent poisonous serpents among the people,	9:36
	and they bit the people so that many Israelites died.	9:40
	The people came to Moses and said	9:46
	we have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you,	9:49
	pray to the Lord to take the serpents from us.	9:53
	So Moses prayed for the people	9:57
	and the Lord said to Moses	9:59
	make a poisonous serpent and set it on a pole	10:02
	and everyone who was bitten shall look at it and live.	10:07
	So Moses made a serpent of bronze	10:12
	and put it upon a pole,	10:15
	and whenever a serpent bit someone,	10:17
	that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live.	10:20
	This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.	10:26
	The Psalm appointed for this Sunday is number 107,	10:33
	which is found on pages 830 and 831 in your hymn book.	10:37
	Please rise as we read the Psalm,	10:42
	and then following we will sing the Gloria.	10:44
	O give thanks to the Lord who is good,	10:55
	whose steadfast love endures forever.	10:57
	Let the redeemed of the Lord say so,	11:01
	whom the Lord has redeemed from trouble	11:04
	and gathered in from lands,	11:07
	from east and from the west,	11:09
	from the north and from the south.	11:11
	Some wandered in the desert wastes,	11:14
	finding no way to a city in which to dwell.	11:17
	Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted within them.	11:21
	Then in their trouble, they cried to the Lord	11:25
	who delivered them from their distress,	11:28
	and led them by a straight way	11:31
	til they reached a city.	11:34
	Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,	11:36
	for his wonderful works to humankind.	11:40
	The Lord turns rivers into a desert,	11:50
	springs of water into thirsty ground.	11:53
	The Lord turns a desert into pools of water,	12:03
	a parched land into springs of water.	12:07
	They sow fields and plant vineyards,	12:17
	and get a fruitful view.	12:21
	When they are diminished and brought low	12:30
	through oppression, trouble, and sorrow,	12:33
	the Lord pours contempt upon princes	12:36
	and makes them wander in trackless wastes.	12:39
	The upright see it and are glad,	12:50
	and all wickedness stops its mouth.	12:53
	(organ music)	13:04
	(choir singing)	13:11
-	Please be seated.	14:00
	Our second reading is taken from the epistle of Paul	14:10
	to the Ephesians,	14:13
	chapter two, beginning with the first verse.	14:15
	You were dead through the trespasses and sins	14:22
	in which you once lived.	14:25
	Following the course of the world,	14:27
	following the ruler of the power of the air,	14:30
	the spirit that is now at work among those	14:33
	who are disobedient.	14:36
	All of us once lived among them	14:40
	in the passions of our flesh,	14:42
	following the desires of flesh and senses,	14:44
	and we were by nature children of wrath,	14:48
	like everyone else.	14:50
	But God, who is rich in mercy,	14:53
	out of the great love with which he loved us	14:56
	even when we were dead through our trespasses,	14:58
	made us alive together with Christ.	15:02
	By grace, you have been saved,	15:05
	and raised us up with him and seated us with him	15:08
	in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus	15:11
	so that in the ages to come,	15:14
	he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace	15:17
	and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.	15:21
	For by grace you have been saved through faith,	15:26
	and this is not your own doing,	15:30
	it is the gift of God,	15:33
	not the result of works,	15:35
	so that no one may boast,	15:38
	for we are what he has made us,	15:41
	created in Christ Jesus for good works	15:43
	which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.	15:47
	This is the word of the Lord.	15:53
	(choir singing)	16:14
	Our last reading is taken from the gospel	23:11
	of our Lord Jesus Christ according to John,	23:13
	chapter three, starting with the 14th verse.	23:16
	And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,	23:23
	so must the son of man be lifted up,	23:27
	that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.	23:30
	For God so loved the world that he gave his only son	23:35
	so that everyone who believes in him may not perish	23:40
	but may have eternal life.	23:44
	Indeed, God did not send the son into the world	23:48
	to condemn the world,	23:51
	but in order that the world might be saved through him.	23:54
	Those who believe in him are not condemned,	23:58
	but those who do not believe are condemned already	24:02
	because they have not believed in	24:05
	the name of the only son of God.	24:08
	And this is the judgment	24:11
	that the light has come into the world,	24:13
	and people loved darkness rather than light	24:16
	because their deeds were evil.	24:19
	For all who do evil hate the light	24:23
	and do not come to the light	24:26
	so that their deeds may not be exposed.	24:28
	But those who do what is true come to the light	24:32
	so that it may be clearly seen	24:36
	that their deeds have been done in God.	24:38
	This is the word of the Lord.	24:44
-	I'm very grateful indeed	25:02
	for this privilege of worshiping here with you again	25:04
	in this marvelous chapel,	25:08
	and especially grateful to be associated	25:11
	in the service today with Reverend Nancy Foray-Clarke	25:14
	and Mister Gallagher,	25:18
	along with the choir and this wonderful organist,	25:20
	and Doctor Hickman, and all of the soloists	25:25
	who render such beautiful music for us.	25:28
	This is a high moment,	25:31
	and I do not take it for granted.	25:32
	The honor of proclaiming the gospel of the son of God here	25:35
	is a very high one indeed.	25:40
	In fact, I have enjoyed my few months at Duke immensely,	25:42
	and especially have I enjoyed my relationship	25:48
	with Dean Campbell in the Divinity School,	25:50
	and Doctor Willimon over here, and Bill Turner,	25:52
	my colleague in the Divinity School.	25:57
	As a matter of fact,	25:59
	when I keep getting lost on these various Chapel Hill roads	26:01
	and streets and boulevards and so forth in Durham,	26:05
	I wonder if this would not be a good time	26:09
	to propose that we change the names of some of these,	26:11
	and recognize the service of some of our colleagues.	26:15
	It looks now like the only reason for being in Durham	26:19
	is to find your way to Chapel Hill,	26:22
	and during this basketball season,	26:24
	maybe the best time to suggest a change.	26:26
	I thought it might be a very good thing	26:30
	to leave Chapel Hill Boulevard like it is	26:32
	and then change Chapel Hill Road	26:34
	to Turner Avenue,	26:37
	and Chapel Hill Street to Campbell Street,	26:39
	and then Old Chapel Hill Road	26:41
	to Willimon Road.	26:44
	When he comes back, you tell him that I made that proposal	26:47
	to the city fathers and mothers.	26:50
	Now, it's very hard to make a Methodist	26:54
	out of an old, old Baptist.	26:57
	I'm Baptist born and Baptist bred,	27:01
	and when I'm gone it'll be a Baptist dead.	27:03
	But the problem is that this	27:06
	chapel staff is so efficient, you know,	27:10
	they write to you nine months ahead of time	27:14
	and ask you for a subject, you know, nine months hence,	27:17
	and that's because they're following	27:20
	the lectionary that the Methodists follow,	27:22
	and they know what ought to be preached about	27:24
	on that Sunday, it doesn't bother them at all.	27:27
	But we Baptists are accustomed to	27:30
	more spontaneity than that.	27:32
	In fact, that's the trademark of our religion, spontaneity.	27:34
	And when I looked and saw	27:39
	what I had promised to preach about,	27:40
	I struggled terribly to deal with that subject,	27:42
	but it seemed more and more like one	27:46
	I had done for Christmas.	27:48
	So, I beg now to change the subject,	27:50
	because when I was reading for Lent,	27:53
	I ran across the name of Joanna.	27:55
	I could not get her off my mind.	27:59
	In the eighth chapter of Luke,	28:03
	we have a reference to Joanna, the wife of Chuza,	28:05
	Herod's steward,	28:10
	and then way over on Easter Sunday morning	28:12
	we find these women coming to the sepulcher	28:16
	to anoint the body of Jesus,	28:20
	Mary Magdalene and several others,	28:22
	and then in that list there was Joanna again.	28:25
	There's nothing in between,	28:30
	and ever since I saw this,	28:33
	I have been trying to think of the life of Joanna,	28:35
	this hidden disciple,	28:40
	and how she must've made a great sacrifice	28:43
	to do what it was that she had to do.	28:47
	Now, let's get acquainted with Joanna,	28:51
	this hidden disciple,	28:53
	and how she did what she had to do.	28:55
	Every few months or so we find another popular expression	29:00
	being used, an expression that somehow	29:05
	everyone seems to understand.	29:09
	My wife and I have to keep up with these	29:11
	because we have four sons,	29:13
	and there are 13 years between	29:15
	son number two and son number three, so we've have deja vu,	29:17
	we've just been raising boys for an entire lifetime.	29:22
	And you know, God moves in very mysterious ways.	29:26
	But it does mean that we've had to keep up	29:31
	with these colloquialisms.	29:32
	It's amazing how these sayings get started.	29:35
	A little while ago, they started using the word chill,	29:38
	chill, I said what does that mean, chill?	29:42
	Well, it means super cool, Daddy,	29:46
	it means it is highly approved, chill.	29:49
	Then I kept seeing these bumper stickers	29:54
	just do it,	29:57
	I kept trying to figure out what was that referring to,	29:59
	and I couldn't find out,	30:02
	but all I know is that it sounds reckless to me,	30:03
	it sounds like paying no attention to consequences	30:06
	and ignoring penalties, just do it,	30:09
	so I don't like the sound of that one,	30:12
	and I have dropped that one quickly.	30:15
	But there's another expression in vogue now	30:18
	that is our subject today	30:21
	in connection with Joanna, the hidden disciple,	30:22
	and this expression calls us to face up	30:26
	to whatever it is that stands in our way.	30:29
	It says just do what you've got to do.	30:32
	And it covers a wide range of situations.	30:38
	It means if you have to stay up light at night	30:43
	finishing an assignment,	30:45
	just do what you've got to do.	30:47
	If it means breaking a habit that's killing you slowly,	30:50
	just do what you've got to do.	30:54
	Giving up some food that is against your health	30:56
	or cutting off a friendship that is just too negative,	30:59
	do what you've got to do.	31:03
	If it means tearing up a credit card,	31:05
	then do what you've got to do.	31:09
	Getting up earlier for work,	31:13
	taking an extra job to meet your budget's demands,	31:15
	spending in a weekend in hibernation	31:19
	to finish a term paper.	31:21
	This came to me as I thought of Joanna,	31:23
	and I thought of it during Lent,	31:28
	and the task of discipleship in our time.	31:30
	And this is a very inspiring personality	31:35
	we find hidden here in the gospel of Luke.	31:38
	We find her first in Luke the eighth chapter, verse three.	31:41
	And she really faced a tough situation,	31:46
	she went on and did what she had to do.	31:50
	Much of what we know about Joanna	31:52
	we have to piece together	31:54
	from these tiny fragments that we find in the gospels,	31:55
	and this is what we find.	31:59
	Joanna was married to a big man, a man named Chuza,	32:02
	who was the chief steward in Herod's palace.	32:07
	Herod was the king who ruled over Jesus' people,	32:12
	a puppet king, not popular at all.	32:14
	And he served under the Roman Emperor,	32:19
	a kind of a convenient politician.	32:21
	And Joanna was married to Chuza, Herod's chief steward,	32:25
	the one in charge of the palace.	32:29
	Somehow Joanna heard about Jesus,	32:32
	and evidently she had some kind of an ailment	32:37
	that caused her to go to look for Jesus.	32:40
	And when she found him,	32:44
	she was among several people who were healed by Jesus.	32:46
	We are not told what her ailment was,	32:53
	but whatever it was	32:55
	she was relieved of it.	32:57
	And there began her relationship with the master,	33:00
	and in her gratitude to Jesus	33:05
	for her new life that she had found,	33:07
	she made a decision to follow him,	33:10
	and she had to go and tell her husband Chuza	33:13
	in Herod's palace	33:18
	that she was going to follow Jesus.	33:20
	Some people, it appears,	33:26
	are really prepared to be serious	33:29
	about their discipleship.	33:33
	And Joanna became one of a small group of women	33:37
	whom Jesus had befriended and had healed,	33:41
	and women saw to it that Jesus and his disciples	33:45
	had food and water and shelter	33:48
	and safe places to rest.	33:53
	The Bible says that they ministered to the disciples	33:56
	out of their substance.	34:01
	As we remember what the position of a woman was	34:04
	in the Roman social hierarchy of the first century,	34:07
	it took an awful lot for Joanna	34:11
	to go and tell her husband,	34:14
	who worked for the king,	34:16
	that she had found a new life for herself.	34:19
	And anyone who knows how the Roman powers	34:22
	looked down on the Jews in Jesus' day	34:25
	would know that it took some nerve for Joanna	34:28
	to tell her husband that she felt	34:31
	that she had to leave, to make an adjustment,	34:33
	to depart from the palace circle, and follow the master.	34:36
	And yet, this is just what she did.	34:42
	Read Luke 8:2-3,	34:45
	and certain women which had been healed of evil spirits	34:48
	and infirmities, Mary called Magdalene,	34:52
	out of whom went seven devils,	34:57
	and Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward,	34:59
	and Susannah and many others,	35:03
	which ministered unto him of their substance.	35:05
	Can you imagine Herod's top steward	35:10
	having a wife who would be a follower of Jesus of Galilee?	35:14
	But Joanna did what she had to do.	35:20
	And if you have discovered that Jesus	35:25
	has become the new center of your life,	35:27
	you may feel what Joanna felt	35:30
	and feel that you have to do now whatever it is	35:32
	you have to do to live up to your discipleship.	35:36
	And the Lenten season is the time for this self examination.	35:41
	This must've been a serious problem for everyone involved,	35:47
	Herod did not want to hear anything	35:50
	about a Jesus follower that close to him in his palace.	35:52
	Chuza was his servant, the chief servant,	36:00
	and you know that Chuza did not want to have to tell Herod	36:05
	that his wife had decided that she had a new life	36:08
	following this Galilean.	36:11
	Herod was a servant of the Emperor,	36:15
	and the Emperor regarded Jesus as a public nuisance,	36:18
	none of this was working out.	36:21
	Joanna had a problem herself, caring about her husband,	36:24
	changing her status, and all of that,	36:28
	and then finding out that it was more important for her	36:31
	to follow Jesus than to do anything else	36:34
	in the social group around the palace.	36:37
	So Joanna did what Joanna had to do.	36:40
	And as I think of how our own relationship to Christ	36:45
	is always under examination,	36:49
	and especially in this Lenten season,	36:52
	I'm helped greatly by studying the life of Joanna	36:55
	even from these fragments,	36:58
	because so much is implied	37:00
	with these brief references to her.	37:03
	Some of the questions that arise are, for example,	37:06
	what was it that made her take such a risk as this?	37:09
	And what made her stay with her choice	37:14
	to the very end?	37:16
	Because, you see, Joanna did not start out and then quit,	37:17
	three years later at the sepulcher	37:23
	they tell us about these women who came with spices	37:27
	and ointments to anoint the body of Jesus,	37:30
	and when they called off the list of those who came,	37:34
	the first ones at the tomb,	37:37
	the ones who made the flirts announcement	37:41
	that he was not there, among that group was Joanna,	37:44
	the wife of Chuza, Herod's steward,	37:50
	a hidden disciple of Jesus.	37:58
	Well, I have an idea what brings this on	38:01
	from my own experience and from the experience	38:03
	of other Christians that I have known,	38:05
	in Jesus she found a new priority for her life,	38:08
	something to put first in her life,	38:11
	and she had not found that in that temple crowd,	38:14
	in that palace crowd.	38:17
	When she met Jesus, she compared him no doubt	38:19
	with the crowd that she had seen	38:21
	in that circle around Herod, and she chose Jesus.	38:23
	Her husband was in charge of Herod's palace,	38:27
	he had all of the help, ordered the repairs,	38:31
	bought the food, arranged the banquets,	38:33
	controlled the traffic in and out,	38:36
	and this type of a job attracts	38:38
	a certain kind of a following,	38:41
	the political opportunists like people Chuza,	38:43
	the influenced peddlers, the hustlers,	38:47
	those who like to turn deals	38:50
	and like to claim to be insiders.	38:53
	Generally, these are people with flabby consciences	38:56
	and do not think of anything but their own advancement,	38:59
	these are the people that she might've seen	39:03
	around Herod's palace.	39:05
	And then when Joanna met somebody else like Jesus,	39:08
	a person of stature and moral substance,	39:11
	she found another kind of a human being altogether,	39:15
	one who focused on a life of integrity,	39:19
	if thine eye be single	39:22
	thine whole body shall be full of light.	39:25
	A light that is giving,	39:30
	he who would seek to save his own life will lose it,	39:32
	he who loses his life for my sake shall find it,	39:36
	a life in tune with God,	39:41
	seek he first the kingdom of God.	39:42
	Another kind of a person altogether.	39:46
	We don't meet but one or two	39:50
	of these kinds of persons in a whole lifetime,	39:51
	persons who cause us to reshuffle our priorities and say	39:56
	these things I've been paying close attention to	40:00
	do no matter at all,	40:03
	and the things I've put way down the end of the list	40:05
	are the most important things after all.	40:08
	She noticed how Jesus had compassion	40:12
	for those who were hurt and lonely,	40:14
	and how he could have a vicarious approach to their lives	40:17
	and stand where they stood	40:21
	and see the world through their eyes.	40:23
	She noticed all of that,	40:27
	she noticed how Jesus could rise above tribe	40:29
	and race and clan and gender	40:32
	and put aside trivial notions of class and rank.	40:36
	She noticed how he had no difficulty at all including her,	40:40
	the wife of Chuza, in his circle,	40:45
	top aid to the king.	40:48
	So, she put Jesus at the top	40:50
	and put the palace gang at the bottom.	40:54
	And when she made the comparison,	40:59
	it caused her to look at her own life,	41:00
	and she began to shuffle her power at this,	41:03
	she decided to give up on some of those activities	41:06
	that the palace people had called important	41:09
	and go out and join those who were helping the master.	41:11
	There was a committee out there	41:15
	with Mary Magdalene in charge,	41:16
	and these women became the backup crew for the master.	41:18
	He lived a normal life and needed helped,	41:23
	he needed food, he needed laundry done,	41:25
	he needed some place to rest and meet with his disciples,	41:27
	and no doubt they were helpful to him.	41:30
	And Joanna put down the high society crowd	41:33
	around Herod's palace and put something else in its place,	41:36
	helping the master with his teaching	41:40
	and preaching and healing ministry,	41:42
	and all of us need to review	41:45
	our priorities every now and then.	41:47
	Just the other day I had a priority question,	41:50
	I was up early, I had a reading project,	41:53
	I had a paper that was due to a publisher	41:57
	and the deadline was fast approaching.	42:00
	I didn't want to be embarrassed,	42:02
	and didn't want to stay up all night,	42:03
	but my wife told me that one of our friends had passed away	42:06
	and that she had attended the funeral,	42:10
	and that she learned that the pastor of the church	42:13
	would be out of town and could not go	42:16
	to the intermit at the cemetery.	42:18
	And I said oh, that's terrible	42:21
	that she may be buried without a song, without a prayer,	42:24
	without a scripture lesson.	42:30
	Imagine 45 years in the church,	42:31
	82 years old,	42:35
	then you die and the gravedigger	42:38
	eases you into your grave unceremoniously?	42:41
	I put down my paper,	42:47
	do you know, I had no trouble at all,	42:49
	like a computer, my priorities began to shuffle around,	42:53
	and something said Sam,	42:57
	stay up all night tonight and do your paper,	42:59
	but put on your black shoes and your dark suit	43:02
	and get that stripey tie on and get outta here	43:06
	and go to that cemetery	43:09
	and be standing there in the ice and the mud and the snow,	43:11
	wait for that procession	43:15
	no matter how long it takes to get there,	43:17
	and you guarantee to God	43:19
	that this child will not be put away like that.	43:22
	Now, you know, it didn't make a lot of difference	43:26
	with the Almighty what I mumbled over her	43:29
	when she was being buried, that's not the point.	43:32
	The point was what was going on inside of me,	43:35
	once again, I had some real contact with the notion	43:38
	that the mind of Christ, when it's with you,	43:43
	will guide you every day	43:48
	in the smallest corners of your existence.	43:50
	That's what Joanna found out,	43:56
	she had no trouble at all	43:58
	putting her priorities in a new listing.	44:00
	See, some people have great difficulty with this,	44:04
	somebody thought it was a priority to break the leg	44:07
	of an Olympic skater to knock her out of competition,	44:10
	now you know those priorities were way out of line.	44:13
	How can you break the leg of an Olympic skater,	44:17
	world renown, without getting caught?	44:19
	Someone thought it was a priority to kill dozens	44:23
	of Muslims at prayer in their mosque in Hebron.	44:25
	What a ghastly thing to do.	44:30
	Some thought it was a priority to blow up the Trade Center	44:34
	no matter who's in there,	44:37
	children, physicians, nurses, whoever,	44:38
	paraplegics, it didn't matter.	44:42
	In the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries,	44:47
	some people thought it was a priority to make money	44:49
	kidnapping slaves and selling them as animals,	44:51
	denying them education and branding them	44:54
	as inferior beings and making it all come out even.	44:56
	Some people have a strange way of establishing priorities	44:59
	and trying to get away with it.	45:04
	But what Joanna found out was that her loyalty to Christ	45:07
	caused her to reorder her priorities.	45:10
	And then more than that,	45:15
	she did not start out and then stop,	45:17
	many people find these religious fads to be enticing,	45:19
	and some of them change religions	45:23
	every time they turn around	45:25
	like changing hairstyles, you know?	45:26
	Look on the television and see somebody else	45:28
	who looks alluring, and there goes their religion,	45:31
	it's gone again,	45:33
	and they're always writing a letter to the pastor,	45:35
	I decided to change my faith again.	45:37
	Joanna went out and found Jesus	45:40
	and she stayed with it,	45:42
	she found a new purpose for her life.	45:44
	It is not just a fad,	45:48
	in Luke eight we find her with these women starting out,	45:51
	but in Luke 24 she's still there,	45:54
	still there after the arrest in Gethsemane,	45:58
	after the mock trial in Pilate's court,	46:01
	after the crucifixion,	46:04
	here we are at the tomb on Easter morning	46:05
	and look who comes and brings spices and ointments	46:08
	to anoint the body of Jesus.	46:11
	Who do you think were the first persons	46:13
	to discover that the tomb was empty?	46:16
	Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James,	46:18
	and Joanna, Joanna did	46:22
	what she had to do.	46:26
	She had a sense of priorities and a sense of purpose.	46:28
	We find this out in the strangest ways.	46:34
	This life, you know, is not a rehearsal,	46:37
	this is the real thing.	46:40
	What a blessing it is to find a purpose for living	46:42
	and make it count,	46:45
	and this is what Jesus does for us.	46:46
	I remember how my father would not shave in the morning	46:48
	when he went to work,	46:52
	he drove a truck in the Navy Yard.	46:52
	He never missed a day in some 40 odd years	46:55
	and President Truman gave him a great big plaque	46:58
	for driving his truck	47:00
	and not driving it overboard now and then.	47:01
	Of course, we were so proud of Daddy.	47:03
	He was like clockwork,	47:07
	he would come home at the same moment every day,	47:10
	the dog knew when Daddy was about to turn the corner.	47:14
	Somebody would say hey, did you get your work done, why?	47:18
	Daddy's on the way, how do you know?	47:21
	Look at Rex.	47:22
	Rex was standing there with his ears stuck up,	47:25
	his tail straight up in the air,	47:27
	watching that corner to see when	47:29
	my Daddy would pop around the corner.	47:30
	Daddy would go to work in the morning	47:33
	with that salt and pepper beard on his face,	47:36
	Daddy, why don't you shave?	47:38
	Well, I'll shave when I get back home this evening.	47:40
	Why didn't he shave?	47:43
	It was because the job in the Navy Yard	47:44
	was not his purpose in life,	47:47
	the job in the Navy Yard was simply a means	47:49
	of feeding his family, paying his dues, and getting by.	47:52
	Daddy's life began at five o'clock	47:57
	when he was the real Herbert Proctor,	48:00
	practicing his violin for the Sunday school orchestra,	48:04
	studying his Sunday school lessons	48:08
	for the teacher's meeting on Friday night,	48:10
	rehearsing his Masonic lectures	48:13
	for the initiations coming up,	48:15
	that was Daddy's real life.	48:17
	All day long they called him Boy George come here, whatever,	48:21
	but he wore that beard as if to disguise the fact	48:26
	that I'm not the person you think I am,	48:30
	I'm somebody else entirely.	48:33
	And watch me when I get home at five o'clock.	48:35
	He'd come in the house, give my momma a big hug,	48:38
	and then head straight upstairs and heat that water	48:41
	in that old gas hot water heater,	48:43
	and then you'd hear him up there running the water,	48:45
	he'd be shaving.	48:47
	He'd come downstairs the real Herbert Proctor	48:49
	to live out his real life.	48:52
	So, even though we are thwarted sometimes	48:54
	and we have to differ what out real purposes are,	48:57
	if they are real and they belong to us,	49:01
	we will claim them and they will guide us	49:03
	until the very end.	49:05
	Joanna left the palace and stayed with it for a lifetime.	49:07
	Now finally, this is a power question, isn't it?	49:13
	Oh, many of us could do what Joanna did,	49:17
	and during Lent we may think about what we've got to change,	49:19
	but it's a power question,	49:22
	where does the strength come from?	49:25
	Well, just as Jesus gives us our priorities,	49:28
	and just as Jesus leads us to our purpose,	49:32
	Jesus leads us into a relationship with God,	49:36
	the inexhaustible power of the living God.	49:40
	That's available, that's available to us.	49:44
	I remember when I was in college,	49:48
	my first two years I was a music major,	49:50
	I had no talent for music, I was just in school,	49:52
	I won a scholarship playing Schubert's Serenade	49:54
	on the clarinet in a contest and I got a scholarship,	49:57
	but I didn't wanna be a music major,	50:00
	but I didn't wanna be in college very much,	50:01
	the Great Depression was going on, no money was anywhere.	50:03
	And today I was reminded of it standing here	50:06
	with the tenor singers, you know,	50:09
	it's embarrassing standing beside these fellas	50:10
	trying to sing, you know?	50:13
	And all they do is open their mouths	50:14
	and the round, sweet notes just flow right out,	50:16
	and then I'm struggling trying to read the words	50:19
	and the notes, you know, I had no talent for that.	50:21
	And when I heard Billy Taylor play the piano,	50:24
	I knew that God was calling me	50:26
	to do something else in life altogether.	50:28
	Well, after two years as a music major	50:31
	and after being called to preach,	50:34
	I weny to a Baptist college.	50:36
	And you know what the dean did?	50:39
	He resented the fact that	50:41
	I had gone to a state college first.	50:42
	What did you go to that school for?	50:45
	Because I had a music scholarship.	50:46
	Why didn't you come here first?	50:49
	Because they gave me the scholarship and you didn't.	50:51
	You know what he did to me?	50:54
	In the name of Jesus, that man took from me	50:55
	three semesters of credits,	50:59
	I'll never forget him as long as I live,	51:01
	and I have to pray over it because it stirs up anger in me.	51:03
	As hard as I worked scuffling	51:08
	to get those two years in college,	51:10
	he turned around and took three semesters from me.	51:11
	When I'm at the chapel, you know,	51:15
	they sit according to your grade level,	51:16
	but I was a junior sitting up there	51:19
	with the entering freshmen	51:22
	and all the boys from Northern were laughing at me,	51:23
	look at him, he must be dumb,	51:25
	as long as he's been in college he's still a freshman.	51:28
	It hurt me so.	51:31
	I went up to my room and I just had a little talk	51:33
	with the Lord and I said	51:36
	I'm gonna show that man that I can graduate	51:38
	from this place in two years even though	51:40
	I've got three and a half years of work to do.	51:42
	And I'm standing in this chapel to say to you,	51:45
	my dear friends,	51:48
	I did three and a half years of work in two years,	51:49
	graduated with academic honors for high scholarship,	51:55
	my daddy didn't have a dime to give me,	51:58
	I worked every step of the way for every bit of my bill,	52:00
	how I did it, I don't know,	52:05
	I lost 40 pounds, I lived on three or four hours sleep	52:07
	at night, but I wanted to be a minister,	52:10
	I wanted to get into the seminary,	52:13
	and I did not want anybody to take joy	52:14
	in created an impediment for me,	52:17
	and the power came from somewhere.	52:19
	The power came.	52:24
	How I could drag myself outta the bed day after day,	52:28
	put the food in the dining room,	52:32
	rake the leaves on the campus,	52:34
	drive the car for the president,	52:35
	I was just a machine,	52:37
	but the power came.	52:40
	I knew that I was not working for naught,	52:42
	I had a purpose and a priority,	52:46
	and when these things are aligned,	52:49
	we're more than flesh and blood,	52:51
	we're more than amino acids,	52:53
	we are spiritual beings, and God provides what we need.	52:55
	O they that wait upon the Lord	53:00
	do indeed renew their strength,	53:02
	they rise up with wings as eagles,	53:04
	they run without getting weary,	53:08
	and they walk without fainting, may God bless you all.	53:10
	(organ music)	53:16
	(choir singing)	53:44
-	The Lord be with you.	55:19
	Let us pray, you may be seated.	55:22
	O Lord our God and creator,	55:38
	we thank you for all that you have made	55:41
	and for the intricate ways that you have provided for us.	55:44
	We give thanks that you are not a passive creator,	55:49
	but an active Lord	55:53
	who continues to be involved in creation,	55:55
	calling us to faithful living as your disciples.	55:59
	We are grateful for the many ways	56:04
	and the many times that you have intervened in our world	56:07
	and in our lives	56:11
	to set the wrong things right.	56:13
	Though we were dead through sin,	56:16
	you gave us the power of new life through Christ.	56:19
	Though we lived according to the passions of our flesh,	56:24
	following the ways of the world,	56:28
	you created us anew to live for Christ.	56:30
	Thank you, Lord, for rearranging our priorities,	56:36
	for creating us to be the people you intended us to be.	56:41
	Give us a vision of life that reflects the possibilities	56:47
	that you have seen,	56:52
	where there is hatred,	56:55
	let is sow love.	56:57
	Where there is injury, pardon.	57:00
	Where there is doubt, faith.	57:05
	Where there is despair, hope.	57:10
	Where there is darkness, light.	57:15
	And where there is sadness, joy.	57:20
	As you intercede for us,	57:25
	empower us to intercede for others,	57:28
	help us do what we have to do without helming the cost,	57:32
	give us the mind of Christ	57:38
	to guide every detail of life	57:40
	that we may know the assurance	57:43
	of living according to the purposes of Christ.	57:45
	Remind us that we are called	57:50
	as vessels of your hope,	57:52
	and that your outpourings of love through us	57:55
	have the power to heal and make whole	57:58
	our bruised world.	58:01
	Move us to minister to one another out of our means,	58:04
	and make us instruments of your love and peace,	58:09
	bearing hope to all whom we meet.	58:13
	We offer these prayers and those that remain unspoken	58:18
	through Jesus Christ,	58:22
	knowing that you know the desires of our hearts,	58:24
	for this and all your blessings we give you thanks, amen.	58:28
	Let us offer ourselves and our gifts	58:36
	and thanksgiving to the Lord.	58:39
	(organ music)	59:14
	(choir singing)	59:56
	Let us pray.	1:08:54
	All things come from you, O God,	1:08:58
	and with gratitude we return to you what is yours.	1:09:01
	You created all that is,	1:09:06
	and with love formed us in your image.	1:09:09
	When our love failed,	1:09:13
	your love remained steadfast.	1:09:15
	You gave your only son Jesus Christ	1:09:19
	to be our savior,	1:09:21
	all that we are and all that we have	1:09:23
	is a trust from you.	1:09:27
	And so, in gratitude for all of your gifts,	1:09:30
	we offer you ourselves and all that we have	1:09:34
	in union with Christ offering for us.	1:09:38
	By your Holy Spirit,	1:09:42
	make us one with Christ,	1:09:44
	one with each other,	1:09:46
	and one in ministry to all the world.	1:09:49
	Through Christ our Lord,	1:09:52
	who taught us to pray saying	1:09:54
	our father who art in heaven,	1:09:57
	hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come,	1:10:00
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	1:10:04
	Give us this day our daily bread,	1:10:08
	and forgive us our trespasses	1:10:11
	as we forgive those who trespass against us,	1:10:14
	and lead us not into temptation,	1:10:18
	but deliver us from evil,	1:10:21
	for thine is the kingdom	1:10:23
	and the power and the glory forever, amen.	1:10:25
	(organ music)	1:10:34
	(choir singing)	1:11:02
	Now may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,	1:14:01
	the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit	1:14:04
	be with you and keep you, amen.	1:14:07
	(organ music)	1:14:14

Item Info

Title:

Samuel Proctor - "The Cosmic Intervention of God" (March 13, 1994)

Description:

Joanna, the wife of Herod's head steward, is a testament to the priorities, purpose, and power that one gains by taking his or her discipleship seriously. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Sermon start time: (Part 1) 25:02. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 53:15.
Key quotation: “Where does our strength come from? Well, just as Jesus gives us our priorities, and just as Jesus leads us to our purpose, Jesus leads us into a relationship with God, the inexhaustible power of the living God.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4tm72g5w

Date:

March 13, 1994

Speaker:

Proctor, Samuel

Liturgical Calendar:

Lent

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0361
ref9385_qkp
uachapelsermaud
duke:321746
dcrmv001346
ark:/87924/r4tm72g5w
ca4c0ef7-51f5-40ec-8ec7-24cf906e1255

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

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

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

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Samuel Proctor - "The Cosmic Intervention of God" (March 13, 1994)

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Duke University Archives

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