Eberhard Bethge - "Experiences with a Top-Text of the Churches" (April 23, 1995)

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	(slow music)	0:01
-	Good morning.	0:07
	Welcome to this service on the second Sunday of Easter.	0:08
	This is a special service for us.	0:15
	Our guest preacher Rev. Dr. Eberhard Bethge,	0:17
	friend of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.	0:21
	This is the fiftieth anniversary of the martyrdom	0:24
	of Dietrich Bonhoeffer by the Nazis.	0:28
	We welcome Dr. Bethge to his first visit to Duke Chapel	0:32
	and await his word to us.	0:37
	This Tuesday evening there will be held	0:42
	here on the steps of the chapel	0:45
	our annual Holocaust Memorial Service	0:46
	and we invite you to this solemn service of worship	0:50
	on Tuesday evening at 7:00 here at the chapel.	0:55
	this is our choir's last Sunday of the year.	1:00
	We thank the Chapel Choir for	1:04
	all of their great contributions	1:06
	to the worship of this place.	1:09
	We have lots of music in the service	1:12
	and lots of opportunity to enjoy them	1:14
	and we wish our choir members well as they begin the summer	1:17
	and we wish farewell to those who will be leaving us.	1:21
	Have an announcement that there's a Chevrolet Cavalier	1:27
	station wagon with lights on, with North Carolina tags	1:29
	here someone's handed me.	1:33
	Let us stand now for the greeting.	1:38
	Christ is risen.	1:42
	Glory and honor Dominion and power be to God	1:46
	forever and ever.	1:49
	(slow music)	1:55
	(choir singing and instruments playing)	2:37
-	Lord God we worship you in the gleaming light of Easter	7:25
	and yet we also worship you	7:32
	in the dark realities of this life.	7:34
	For the victims of the great tragedy in Oklahoma City,	7:39
	for the victims of today's massacre in Rwanda,	7:45
	for all who come to worship this day in this congregation	7:50
	facing chaos and difficulties we pray.	7:56
	We come here to worship you aware that you	8:00
	are the source of all good.	8:05
	Touch us oh God.	8:08
	Speak to us in this service.	8:11
	Bring us to assure in living faith in your power	8:14
	for our lives and for the whole world.	8:19
	Amen.	8:24
	Be seated.	8:26
	We appear to have a shortage of bulletins.	8:29
	If you would please share your bulletins	8:32
	with those around you,	8:34
	with those who do not have we would appreciate it.	8:35
	Thank you.	8:37
-	Open our hearts and minds Oh God.	8:50
All	By the power of your Holy Spirit	8:54
	so that as the word is read and proclaimed,	8:57
	we may hear your message with joy.	9:01
	Amen.	9:04
-	The first lesson is from the book of Revelation 1:4-8.	9:07
	John, to the seven churches	9:16
	that are in Asia grace to you and peace from Him who is	9:18
	and who was and who is to come.	9:28
	And from the seven spirits who are before His throne	9:32
	and from Jesus Christ the faithful witness,	9:36
	the firstborn of the dead	9:42
	and the ruler of the kings of the earth.	9:46
	to Him who loves us and freed us from our sins by His blood	9:51
	and made us to be a Kingdom,	9:58
	priests serving his God and Father,	10:02
	to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever.	10:06
	Amen.	10:11
	Look He is coming with the clouds.	10:12
	Every eye will see Him.	10:16
	Even those who pierced him and on his account	10:19
	all the tribes of the earth will wail.	10:24
	So it is to be.	10:29
	Amen.	10:31
	I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God	10:33
	who is and who was and who is to come.	10:38
	The Almighty.	10:43
	This is the word of the Lord.	10:46
Congregation	Praise be to God.	10:49
	(choir sings)	11:10
-	Today's Psalm is number 150	16:33
	found on page 862 in your hymnal.	16:35
	Please stand and sing the psalm and Gloria responsively.	16:39
	(musical instrument playing)	16:44
	♪ Praise the Lord ♪	16:49
	♪ Praise God in His sanctuary ♪	16:52
	♪ Praise God in His mighty heavens ♪	16:57
	♪ Praise God for His mighty deeds ♪	17:04
	♪ Praise God for His exceeding greatness ♪	17:09
	♪ Praise God with trumpet sound ♪	17:16
	♪ Praise God with lute and harp ♪	17:21
	♪ Praise God with tambourine and dance ♪	17:28
	♪ Praise God with strings and pipe ♪	17:33
	♪ Praise God with sounding cymbals ♪	17:39
	♪ Praise with loud clashing cymbals ♪	17:44
	♪ Let everything breaths praise the Lord ♪	17:50
	♪ Praise the Lord ♪	17:56
	♪ Oh glory be to your creator ♪	18:01
	♪ And to Jesus Christ our savior ♪	18:04
	♪ And to the Holy Spirit blessed trinity ♪	18:08
	♪ As it was when time began ♪	18:16
	♪ Is now and will be forever more ♪	18:20
	You may be seated.	18:32
-	All glory be to you creator	19:02
	and to Jesus Christ our savior.	19:06
	As it was e'er time began	19:14
All	Is now and will be forever more.	19:17
-	The Gospel reading is from Matthew chapter 16:13-23.	19:23
	Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi	19:34
	He asked his disciples,	19:40
	who do people say that the son of man is?	19:43
	And they said some say John the Baptist	19:49
	but others Elijah and still others Jeremiah	19:54
	or one of the prophets.	20:01
	He said to them but who do you say that I am.	20:04
	Simon Peter answered,	20:10
	you are the Messiah.	20:13
	The son of the Living God.	20:16
	And Jesus answered him,	20:20
	blessed are you Simon son of Jonah	20:23
	for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you	20:29
	but my father in heaven and I tell you	20:34
	you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church	20:39
	and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.	20:46
	I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven	20:52
	and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven	20:56
	and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.	21:01
	Then he sternly ordered the disciples	21:07
	not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.	21:10
	From that time on Jesus began to show his disciples	21:15
	that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering	21:21
	at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes	21:26
	and be killed and on the third day be raised	21:32
	and Peter took him aside and said rebukingly,	21:38
	God forbid it Lord this must never happen to you	21:43
	but he turned and said to Peter	21:48
	get behind me Satan.	21:51
	You are a stumbling block to me	21:55
	for you are setting your mind not on divine things	21:58
	but on human things.	22:03
	This is the word of the Lord.	22:07
Congregation	Thanks be to God.	22:09
-	(speaks foreign language)	22:38
	The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with us all.	22:42
	Amen.	22:47
	Now I'm going to preach about	22:51
	one of the chief stories of Christianity.	22:53
	Which had such a mixed history and reception.	22:59
	Generally in history and even in my own life.	23:04
	And I'm interested in all these four blocks	23:09
	you have just heard being read	23:13
	That experience of a breakthrough with Peter	23:16
	that hailing him and authorizing him and his church	23:22
	and then third that prohibition to speak about it	23:29
	and adding the announcement of his passion	23:33
	and forth that total misunderstanding of Peter	23:39
	being called and by Christ go behind me Satan.	23:46
	It had at least three different phases.	23:53
	This chief text of the church.	23:58
	First the church triumphant and we remember	24:01
	if you ever have been in Rome	24:06
	the golden mosaic letters on St. Peter's rotunda in Rome	24:10
	Each letter more than one and a half yay big	24:16
	"Tu es Peter" shining down at the masses	24:20
	without suggestion of human limitations	24:27
	in Peter and the Church	24:30
	and second, it became one of the controversial chief texts.	24:33
	Roman Catholics and Protestants	24:39
	fighting about its meaning up to this day.	24:42
	Whether this text is sufficient basis	24:47
	for the office of the Pope	24:51
	and the consequences of this fight since centuries	24:54
	written ineradicably into the clear geographical maps	24:58
	especially of Europe and some of the consequences	25:04
	still being suffered in former Yugoslavia.	25:10
	And third, it has become a cruel chief text.	25:15
	Christians have supplied this text to the Jews,	25:20
	applied to the Jews	25:24
	who refused to confess Jesus as a messiah	25:26
	and on this account have taken away	25:30
	their houses and property,	25:32
	have restricted their careers,	25:34
	deprived them of decent occupation,	25:37
	freedom even life itself	25:39
	thus this chief texts of the Christians	25:44
	had become a surveyors wrought	25:47
	rip in the hands of the absolutists	25:50
	to justify the lines of separation	25:54
	between human beings and to nourish hatred	25:58
	and during my own life it	26:03
	I had my own experiences with these	26:07
	rather differing levels of interpretation	26:11
	usages of this Christian chief text	26:15
	and there were three.	26:20
	First, let's begin with the second level.	26:21
	As a student even before 1933	26:26
	of course we were excited about the controversies	26:32
	referring to Roman Catholic claims on St. Peter.	26:36
	On St. Peter See, the Vatican	26:42
	as varying German Protestants we liked when our teachers	26:45
	explained the New Testament courses	26:50
	that there was nothing written about the successor	26:53
	of Peter in the Vatican on this passage.	26:56
	And of course nothing about his priorities.	27:00
	In the meantime of course things have cooled down a bit	27:06
	Roman catholic interpreters used to read the text as we do	27:11
	namely about this great promises about the church	27:15
	and her foundations do not rest on Peter's character	27:21
	or Peter's personality and his strengths.	27:26
	The confession revealed not from flesh and blood	27:33
	but from the father in heaven.	27:39
	The second usage of this chief text,	27:44
	the triumphant establishment of the church	27:48
	on the foundation of the confession of the Messiah	27:52
	took on a new quality for us and especially for me	27:56
	and my friends in the year of 1933 there in Germany.	28:00
	Suddenly my church had to resist new gods,	28:05
	new idols even one new God.	28:12
	There were suddenly alters in some of our churches	28:17
	on which you could find the picture of Adolf Hitler.	28:22
	On the 23rd of July 1933	28:29
	there were the famous church elections in Germany	28:33
	all over the country.	28:37
	On the evening before Hitler visited	28:39
	the Wagner Opera in Bayreuth,	28:44
	I think it was just the performance of Parsifal	28:46
	conducted by Richard Strauss	28:52
	and during the break he spoke over the radio to all Germans	28:56
	He was interested for his German Christians	29:03
	that nazified Christian party enthusiastic followers	29:08
	of the churches who wanted to force everybody to confess	29:15
	next to Jesus not America not other countries	29:20
	but Germany and Adolf Hitler	29:25
	and who wanted to remodel the church institutions	29:29
	according to Nazi principles,	29:34
	including the indoctrination of the antisemitic	29:39
	so-called Aryan paragraph into the church's Constitution	29:44
	and the German Christians in fact	29:50
	on the next Sunday won the elections	29:54
	with more than 70%.	29:57
	On this same Sunday there in July '33,	30:02
	Dietrich Bonhoeffer preached in one of the Berlin churches	30:06
	and he preached this very text Matthew 16	30:11
	and everybody in the church understood at once	30:17
	that word of the only one Messiah	30:21
	you should confess to	30:26
	and excluding a claim that	30:28
	Hitler was in any way a German Messiah	30:32
	and Dietrich preached of the church I quote	30:37
	"which cannot properly do anything also then	30:41
	to spread the confession of Him alone Jesus Christ	30:47
	as long as she was doing it so she has	30:54
	the firm rock under their feet."	31:01
	There as he said, "Church, do not look at any other pillar.	31:06
	Church remains the church.	31:14
	confess confess confess this man."	31:16
	And still today I breathe faster	31:23
	when I remember this effect of this confession text	31:28
	in this kind of context which then created	31:33
	that what we know now as a confessing Church	31:39
	and that remained for years	31:45
	the formative experience	31:49
	for me and for my friends in those days.	31:51
	The passage provided us even with some vision	31:56
	for the persecuted ones, for the Jews	32:04
	so that we protested the introduction of the Aryan paragraph	32:08
	in those days though we know now of course	32:14
	how little we had understood	32:18
	and how poor our attempts were then	32:20
	and let me add when I now saw for the first time in my life	32:25
	the rotunda in St. Peter's Church in Rome	32:30
	and that was in 1936 together I visited Rome	32:33
	with Dietrich Bonhoeffer I loved that golden inscription.	32:38
	Wasn't it not only comforting wasn't it even true yes	32:45
	the persecuted Church stands on rocks.	32:52
	We were both still full of the last days in Berlin	32:57
	which we just had left during	33:02
	the days of the Olympic Games there in Berlin.	33:05
	I had seen and read graffitis on the walls	33:09
	done by the stormtroopers which said in wonderful poetry,	33:14
	after the Olympiad we will smash the church to marmalade	33:18
	and here we read now in the Roman Cathedral	33:25
	no the doors of Hell will not overcome the church.	33:30
	The confessing church.	33:36
	But then later came another stage	33:41
	and that period is still with us and going on.	33:46
	The period in which that brave and firm appeal	33:50
	and reference to this text did not come anymore	33:54
	so easily to our lips.	33:57
	In West Germany after the war we were	34:02
	now with our church again in a pretty good shape.	34:05
	Respected again,	34:11
	in the majority again,	34:13
	having back all the privileges.	34:15
	What a difference to confess Matthew 16 in what he called,	34:20
	In statu confessionis,	34:26
	in persecution.	34:29
	In status over small,	34:31
	over the weak,	34:34
	over the powerless minority	34:35
	or to do it now again in a status of comfort and well-being.	34:37
	When that confession of the underdogs	34:47
	became again the confession of the one on top.	34:50
	Suddenly the creed of this confession	34:55
	became the status symbol in society.	34:58
	The confession to Jesus the Messiah,	35:03
	became the serious rot	35:06
	thus what in the text had been an experience of liberation	35:10
	of blessings opening up gracious truth, justice, love	35:15
	that exactly turns into a means of pressuring others.	35:21
	Love becomes threatening and manipulative.	35:27
	A bit too crafty.	35:33
	When after Auschwitz will gain in Germany very slowly,	35:37
	very late to study this long history of guilt	35:43
	which helped to make possible in Auschwitz.	35:50
	We became where houses chief text of Christianity	35:54
	had developed into a cruel story for them, for the Jews.	35:58
	For centuries their refusal to confess Jesus as a Christ	36:05
	had brought them sanctions not only in Germany of course	36:10
	but in the merciless sequence of nations and centuries	36:15
	in ever new experiences of deprivation and death.	36:19
	the same text which was such an affirmation	36:25
	for us, for me an edification,	36:30
	for them it was the source of a constant running	36:33
	of the godless in Christian society	36:38
	which means a text written by Jews telling Jewish	36:42
	experiences filled totally with Jewish concepts	36:49
	and Jewish hopes had become the most anti-jewish passage	36:54
	with shocking consequences.	37:01
	Civil consequences.	37:04
	Now this has become one of our problems in our church	37:06
	and in our German theology in my home church too.	37:13
	Now we are trying to deal with it	37:19
	but those insights aren't their warning	37:24
	to all Christians of the world.	37:28
	How our Christian possessions even this Creed	37:31
	might become a weapon against non-Christians	37:37
	Here an alarm sounds that more is necessary	37:42
	than a verbal confession that Jesus is the Christ.	37:47
	Now exactly at this point	37:52
	our text says something very precisely.	37:55
	Belonging to the Messiah Christ,	37:59
	to the person is important as Peter	38:04
	and his other fellows discovered	38:09
	but it includes being set on a distinctive way	38:13
	the way of readiness for suffering.	38:20
	In the first parts of Matthew 16 text	38:24
	everything circles around the person Jesus the Christ	38:28
	and around being related to that person in confession	38:35
	but in the last two parts the story circles around his way.	38:42
	Therefore it says you cannot have the name of Christ	38:48
	and you cannot be called a Christian without his way.	38:53
	The following passages in Matthew reading that	39:00
	but what has happened in the story of Christianity.	39:06
	Consent to the person of Christ has mainly	39:11
	been accepted as making you a Christian.	39:15
	Consent to active participation in his way of suffering	39:19
	has mainly been left out.	39:24
	Suffering was generally left to those	39:27
	who declined their consent to the person of the Messiah.	39:30
	Of course the church plays Christ's passion all along.	39:35
	She made it the center of her sacramental liturgy.	39:40
	It became exclusively a passion of a Christ for me.	39:45
	It provided medicine to free us from sin	39:52
	and from suffering.	39:58
	The church made Christ's passion a pharmacy for healing	39:59
	but participation in Christ's suffering was shifted	40:04
	to the outsiders who would not confess	40:09
	Jesus' Messianic uniqueness.	40:12
	In Europe's old cathedral and around the world maybe,	40:16
	in these lovely painted prayer books of the middle ages	40:21
	you find the most extraordinary examples of great art	40:26
	and of great misrepresenting the gospel.	40:32
	For instance a picture from 1421 in Bologna	40:37
	of the elevated crucified Christ	40:45
	with his right hand he crowns a proud female figure	40:49
	riding on a proud horse,	40:54
	the Ecclesia, the church.	40:58
	Out of the body of Christ spills his blood and the woman	41:00
	catches it in a cup for Holy Communion	41:06
	and this lady Ecclesia is the queen and	41:10
	she spends the food of salvation.	41:13
	However with his left hand	41:17
	Christ pierces deeply the body of another woman	41:21
	with a huge sword, the bold figure of the synagogue	41:27
	riding to death to hell on a most ugly he-goat.	41:32
	This separation between the person and his way	41:41
	is now condemned even more in our text itself.	41:47
	This is being told to us that Peter	41:52
	who just had totally understood	41:56
	that same Peter in the next moment	42:00
	does not understand at all.	42:02
	The highly praised rock of the church	42:06
	receives the most outspoken reprove	42:09
	away from me Satan	42:12
	and Matthew who is so much interested in the role of Peter	42:16
	told that without moderating it at all.	42:22
	What did Peter mean?	42:26
	We touch that early in the moment	42:31
	when Jesus combines a glorious royal role	42:33
	of Peter's confession, "You are the Christ,"	42:37
	with that most unroyal way of his coming sufferings	42:41
	just then Peter wants to separate the person and his way.	42:45
	And exactly this comes under the total judgment of Jesus.	42:53
	Apparently very soon Peter was not able anymore	42:57
	to know really what he had said with his confession	43:01
	you are the Christ and we belong to you.	43:06
	He was able to speak out the presence of Christ	43:09
	and he was not soon able to understand	43:13
	and to measure into what field he had entered	43:18
	with speaking out that confession of Christ's presence.	43:22
	But, if this happened to Peter,	43:28
	how can we know,	43:33
	how can we think that we would understand better than he?	43:35
	Do we realize what field we have entered	43:41
	claiming his name for us?	43:46
	And more so do we realize what we do to this name,	43:50
	which we think is now our name,	43:57
	when we demand of others that they must make this confession	44:00
	So scripture says here yes to the person of Christ	44:06
	which remains isolated from the way of Christ in this world	44:12
	that is satanic,	44:18
	that is evil,	44:21
	that is seductive.	44:23
	It cannot be Christian faith.	44:26
	Now there are the Jews who doubt our confession,	44:31
	and we call into question what we say and claim	44:37
	for their ears that we are already with a messianic man.	44:41
	Considering our ways, our steps, our lack of discipleship,	44:47
	I think they do us a necessary service.	44:52
	In this connection we rather lately discovered	44:59
	that illuminating word of Dietrich Bonhoeffer	45:04
	in his ethics when he says, "The Jew keeps open for us	45:07
	the Christ question." Being said by a man	45:13
	who is so much Christ centered.	45:16
	Who we would expect that he would say	45:19
	the Christ question forever is closed.	45:21
	No.	45:23
	Here he says it's open for us	45:24
	oh it keeps open for us the Christ question	45:29
	so he wrote in 1940.	45:32
	And I think that is profound truth	45:36
	and we need those Jews mistrusting our messianic claims	45:40
	to prevent us from making Christ into a sweet,	45:49
	a cheap idol, a false God, a pagan god.	45:53
	All as Peter was going to do.	45:58
	As a theologian of the Reformation,	46:02
	Dietrich Bonhoeffer was always afraid	46:05
	that we would fill our imaginations,	46:07
	our pictures of Christ	46:10
	maybe with philosophical,	46:12
	with Greek contents,	46:14
	with non biblical concepts.	46:16
	Church history shows many examples	46:19
	and so do our hymns our prayer books	46:22
	and in Nazi Germany churches and theologians	46:27
	had promoted Jesus into a pagan heaven of gods and idols	46:32
	Jesus plus the swastika flag.	46:39
	That was made now a Teutonic hero God	46:44
	who even had to protest the racist purity of the Germans	46:49
	and always too, and in your country may be an example for	46:55
	where here Jesus first and here the American flag too,	47:01
	Reichsbischof Ludwig Müller	47:06
	Hitler's man in the church, a Nazi Bishop	47:08
	turned the Sermon on the Mount into a book in 1936	47:12
	into a book of "Deutsche Gottes Worte"	47:18
	he published Germans words of God.	47:22
	Are perhaps there, in some other places too,	47:27
	maybe in America too, being created words of God?	47:31
	Being invented today? But what has this Teutonic,	47:35
	this Greek, this American got Christ to do	47:41
	with the representative of	47:46
	the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob.	47:49
	With the God of Moses and of the prophets.	47:52
	With the God of the Jews and the God of Jesus	47:56
	of those Jews who have suffered for his justice,	48:01
	for His grace,	48:06
	who've testified for this	48:08
	through the centuries.	48:11
	Is Bonhoeffer not right?	48:14
	The Jews keep open the Christ question for us.	48:16
	Thus we see with our decision for the person	48:23
	of Jesus, the Christ,	48:27
	we have entered another field.	48:31
	We have accepted a norm,	48:34
	we have assumed the goal that is defined by the discipleship	48:37
	of the Sermon on the Mount,	48:41
	by the hymn of love in 1 Corinthians 13,	48:44
	We have entered a field which is under the promise	48:49
	of compassion and thus under the promise of resurrection.	48:53
	So simple is the confession to Jesus the Messiah	49:01
	and so complicated at the same time.	49:07
	So God forlorn and so certain,	49:12
	so threatened and so firmly built on a rock,	49:18
	so much Good Friday and so much Easter.	49:24
	Some years ago I was asked to put down in my own words	49:31
	who is Jesus of Nazareth for me.	49:38
	I said then, "I will not succeed with putting away the name	49:41
	after which I am called a Christian.	49:47
	Even if I wanted to this name will remain a measure	49:51
	which I cannot escape and flee.	49:58
	Even when half the world would permit me to forget,	50:01
	the Jew might stand up and bide me back to this name	50:07
	and I would have to agree.	50:15
	I even hope I would do this by my whole heart	50:17
	because Jesus of Nazareth remains the basis and the measure	50:23
	of my life even when the measures do not fit anymore	50:31
	or well enough."	50:38
	And may I add today, He, Jesus, binds me	50:40
	to the first commandment and still separates me	50:46
	from all the other gods created again and again	50:52
	in this world, the false gods.	50:58
	Amen.	51:03
	(speaks foreign language)	51:06
	(slow music)	51:31
	(choir singing)	52:07
-	You may be seated.	54:41
	Please join me in the prayers of the people	54:49
	printed in your bulletin.	54:51
	Oh God early in the morning we cry to you.	54:55
	We praise and thank you for the piece of the night.	55:04
	We praise and thank you for all your goodness and blessings.	55:12
	You will lay on us no more than we can bear.	55:21
	Lord Jesus Christ you were poor and in distress,	55:31
	a captive and forsaken.	55:36
	You abide with us when others fail us.	55:42
	It is your gracious will that	55:48
	we should know you and turn to you.	55:50
	Oh Holy Spirit, as we seek freedom	55:57
	help us to learn all things	56:00
	to govern our souls and our senses	56:02
	for fear that our passions and longings	56:05
	may lead us away from the path we should follow.	56:08
	We remember in your presence all who suffer	56:24
	in mind body and spirit.	56:27
	The disenfranchised,	56:31
	the homeless,	56:34
	those who mourn,	56:36
	those in prison	56:39
	and all who seek your healing power and comfort.	56:41
	With every power for good to stay and guide comforted	56:57
All	and inspired beyond all fear.	57:03
	we pray that we will not falter	57:06
	thankfully receiving all that is given by your loving hand.	57:09
-	In May representatives from Duke Chapel	57:18
	will participate in a church delegation	57:21
	to Kostroma Russia, Durham's sister city.	57:23
	Kostroma has been hard hit by	57:27
	the economic and political changes.	57:29
	Experiencing the second highest rate	57:32
	of unemployment in the nation.	57:34
	We invite you to be a part of the relief effort.	57:37
	This week and next week we will accept checks	57:41
	in the offertory plate	57:44
	made out to Duke Chapel but designated for Kostroma.	57:46
	Also May 1st through the 5th we will have	57:50
	a clothing and medication drive on campus.	57:53
	Used clothing, over-the-counter medications and vitamins	57:57
	with at least one year shelf-life will be accepted	58:01
	in the chapel basement entrance from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m.	58:05
	Monday through Friday.	58:09
	Any assistance that you can provide	58:11
	will be gratefully forwarded to our friends in Kostroma.	58:13
	Now with gladness let us present the offerings	58:18
	of our lives and labor to the Lord.	58:21
	(choir sings)	58:42
-	Gracious God we thank you for the glory	1:05:23
	of great music and those who make it,	1:05:26
	for the glory of faithful martyrs,	1:05:29
	for your truthful word,	1:05:31
	for the light work and witness of Dietrich Bonhoeffer	1:05:35
	and for all the saints gone before us	1:05:39
	to show us the way to your glory.	1:05:43
	Praying as we are taught.	1:05:49
	Our Father	1:05:51
All	who art in heaven	1:05:53
	hallowed be thy name	1:05:55
	thy kingdom come	1:05:56
	thy will be done	1:05:59
	as it is in heaven	1:06:00
	give us this day our daily bread.	1:06:03
	Forgive us our trespasses	1:06:05
	as we forgive those who trespass against us	1:06:08
	and lead us not into temptation	1:06:12
	but delivery us from evil,	1:06:15
	for thyne is the kingdom,	1:06:17
	power and glory forever.	1:06:19
	Amen.	1:06:22
-	Please be seated.	1:06:24
	Yeah I'll just stand here	1:06:28
	(choir singing)	1:06:45
-	The grace of God be with you now and always.	1:16:30
	(choir singing)	1:16:38

Item Info

Title:

Eberhard Bethge - "Experiences with a Top-Text of the Churches" (April 23, 1995)

Description:

Sermon start time: 22:42. Sermon end time: 51:05.
Matthew 16, and Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah, is one of the central stories of the Christian faith, yet it has had a long and ambivalent history of interpretation, at times being used to oppress and abuse Jews who would not adhere to Peter's confession. What it teaches us, however, is that a confession of the person of Christ cannot be separated from adherence to his way of life, a way marked by humble suffering, not triumphalistic dominance. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “So simple is the confession of Jesus the Messiah and so complicated at the same time. So God forlorn and so certain, so threatened and so firmly built on a rock, so much Good Friday and so much Easter.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4gm82395

Date:

April 23, 1995

Speaker:

Bethge, Eberhard

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0422
ref9569_h6i
uachapelsermaud
duke:321718
dcrmv001400
ark:/87924/r4gm82395
14a9dea0-2580-437e-b377-9aac19a5aeed

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

Provenance:

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

Rights:

No Re-Use

In Copyright

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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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Eberhard Bethge - "Experiences with a Top-Text of the Churches" (April 23, 1995)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives

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