James T. Cleland - "What's the Question?" Opening Sunday (September 22, 1968)

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-	Give us this day our daily bread	0:09
	and forgive us our trespasses	0:11
	as we forgive those who trespass against us,	0:13
	and lead us not into temptation,	0:17
	but deliver us from evil.	0:19
	For thine is the kingdom,	0:22
	and the power and the glory forever,	0:23
	Amen.	0:27
	Peace be to the house of God,	0:49
	and to all who worship with us.	0:51
	Would you like to know about this service	0:58
	(indistinct)	1:02
	Well, whether you would or not, it is what God is doing.	1:05
	Driving through the under thoughts of each chapter	1:12
	that's about two weeks ago.	1:15
	One was greeted by the gracious announcement, Jesus	1:17
	the answer, John 3:16.	1:22
	This then affects your inhibition, has been made.	1:28
	(indistinct)	1:35
	John 3:16.	1:40
	Now if anyone accepts the original version	1:44
	of this cottonpatch bearing reading.	1:49
	My reaction is still the same, the same as it was,	1:54
	when I saw the good news, painted in white	1:58
	on the East Campus Bridge.	2:02
	The Jesus.. or ?	2:06
	the answer, what's the question?	2:09
	Until we know and understand what were asking	2:17
	It is impossible to say with any certainty that this	2:21
	or even that is the answer.	2:27
	Now last Sunday, the Chaplain to the university	2:31
	rightfully and effectively analyze and ascertain the	2:34
	intent and the content of the university services wishes.	2:39
	It is the acknowledgement and reverence of the God,	2:46
	primarily revealed in Jesus Christ and the willing	2:52
	recognition of our voluntary commitment to Him.	2:57
	The service they know, is very complimentary parts ?	3:05
	is the celebration of a God that was best known	3:09
	by the analogy of Father.	3:15
	That is the fact that decides and dominates	3:19
	the import of the service and determines the walk	3:23
	(indistinct).	3:28
	Nevertheless, the servant is the balance place	3:34
	within such a service, that asks oneself again	3:38
	the questions which lie behind the	3:43
	sudden and spoken answers.	3:46
	In order that we may discover	3:51
	if there is even better news about the good news.	3:54
	So let us hear again	4:01
	some of the ancient and recurring questions	4:04
	which the pave to our faith and suffer	4:07
	to our daily living.	4:11
	Since we are dealing with religion	4:15
	the first object of inquiry will be the three letter word,	4:17
	G O D.	4:23
	While that's probably true as some Freshman has told us,	4:26
	that if you stayed with me and if you feed God	4:31
	God divine is God finished.	4:39
	Yet we need some sort of elimination. To tie Him down.	4:42
	And not to lap it up.	4:46
	We keep muttering two recurring questions	4:51
	from the old Testament.	4:54
	Joe all the time knew where I might find it.	4:56
	The second idea is to whom then will he liken God.	5:02
	Now like Joe, some of us angry and impatient	5:11
	about the hiddeness of God.	5:16
	Others others like the unknown clusters of the exile	5:21
	are all propelled by the majesty and the magnificence	5:25
	of the universe and by traces at least of a moral law	5:29
	at work among men and nations.	5:36
	But when we come to make the definition of God, we're stuck.	5:40
	Even Jesus seems to have hesitated when it came to	5:50
	a dictionary explanation. Listen to Him.	5:54
	God is.. yep come on.	5:57
	What is God? God is like a clock.	6:03
	Of course, Jesus was a first century Jew.	6:14
	That means that He resides as practical or	6:17
	picturesque in His teachings, and His references to God	6:21
	are poetical and are logical parabolic.	6:26
	He wouldn't say to them, God is the grounds of being.	6:32
	The Bible does not seem to ask the question	6:37
	many of us or our fellows ask:	6:42
	Is there a God?	6:46
	God is assumed, accepted and to your method,	6:50
	the Bible queries: What's He like?	6:56
	Creator, Judge, Being, Bossman,	7:00
	Father.	7:09
	And we put all our affirmation in Him and in Creed.	7:12
	Rightfully and naturally ask the conjoined questions:	7:19
	Is there a God?	7:25
	And if so, what's He like?	7:27
	And such questions will be rightfully dealt with	7:31
	in Sermons, from this book.	7:34
	Now the first question inevitably leads to a second.	7:39
	What is man?	7:43
	And all kinds of answers are sail our ears.	7:47
	Man is a two legged animal without feathers.	7:51
	Blatant if you said that.	7:58
	Man is a thief with possibility or	8:02
	man is a monkey who has learned to comb his hair or	8:08
	something like that. One sees the influence of	8:14
	Charles Darwin there.	8:19
	Alexander Hope in the 18th century, asserted that	8:22
	man is natures sole piece.	8:26
	My queen cemented that man is the only animal that blushes	8:32
	But religion claims that the question	8:38
	"What is man?" is more than a 3 word query.	8:45
	It must be lit and in love with the questions about God	8:50
	it was a Psalmist who asks the giant question,	8:57
	what is man, if thou are mindful of him?	9:01
	And the son of man, that thou visited Him.	9:08
	The answer to the second question is infinitely tied	9:16
	to our first question. The answer about man depends	9:19
	on the answer about God.	9:23
	The basic answer may turn on the supposition that	9:27
	God needed man. God's nature is love,	9:32
	according to the new Testament and lots of the old.	9:39
	And love demands an object which can respond.	9:44
	James Melvin Johnson the need for quiet has spited up	9:53
	something like this and his need for sermon	9:56
	as you all know the creation, and God stepped out into space	9:59
	and He looked around and said "I'm lonely".	10:07
	I'll make me a world. And so He did.	10:14
	And when He had finished, sun, moon, stars, earth,	10:20
	sea, fishes, beasts and birds looking at it all	10:29
	Gods preclusion was, "I'm lonely still".	10:33
	Then God sat down.	10:40
	On the side of a hill where He could think.	10:44
	By a deep wide river He sat down,	10:47
	with His head in His hands, God thought...	10:53
	And thought... and He thought "I'll make me a man".	10:59
	A man for companionship. A human being that loves me.	11:10
	And so we come to a third question stemming from the second,	11:20
	what attitude should govern a man in his dealings with God?	11:24
	What kinds of thinking and behavior would lead to good	11:31
	relations between God and man.	11:35
	And it was an 8th century Prophet by the name of Micah	11:38
	who put into words one of the best answers ever given	11:43
	to God/man relations.	11:47
	He'd been struggling with the question of	11:51
	how a man should come before God.	11:54
	Animal sacrifice had normally been apart of worship.	11:58
	But Micah wasn't excited about those offerings.	12:05
	What about 10,000 rivers of oil?	12:09
	Now that would be some libation. A torrential outpour.	12:14
	Why not go back to human sacrifice?	12:20
	Shall I give my first born,	12:24
	the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?	12:26
	Micah wasn't enthusiastic about any of the old answers.	12:34
	Then came the great word,	12:38
	the first box of our morning regimen.	12:41
	He had shown the old man what is good.	12:44
	What does the Lord require of me? Is it to do justly?	12:50
	And to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God.	12:56
	To walk humbly with God that's the divine reference	13:05
	and the consequence should be the such a man	13:09
	would be a just person, more than that,	13:12
	he'd be a kind person.	13:16
	I have a hunch that it was this verse from Micah that	13:19
	inspired the attitude and controls the behavior of many,	13:24
	not all, but many of our students, throughout the vigil,	13:29
	during the last academic year on this campus.	13:36
	What is man, man, male or female made He what He is	13:40
	because of this new God.	13:47
	There's a divine component in mans new service.	13:50
	Alright God, man. God and man.	13:55
	Can you see what the next question is?	14:00
	What about a mans relationship to other people?	14:03
	Question was once put in words	14:08
	that have never been forgotten	14:11
	by the ecclesiastical lawyer:	14:13
	Jesus, who is my neighbor?	14:15
	These words were read in the second part of the vessel.	14:20
	Now Jesus did not suggest a group discussion	14:24
	or a bull session on this interesting topic.	14:28
	He transformed the question into a modern dilemma,	14:32
	by telling this Jew a parable in which the villains	14:39
	turned out to be two members of the Jewish clergy	14:45
	and the good guy was a disguise.	14:50
	May I use the word lousy.	14:58
	Who is my neighbor? The person who needs a neighbor.	15:04
	The lostness and downess and outness.	15:11
	That is the person that must be loved as much as practically	15:18
	and as down to earth as I love my self.	15:25
	Now such an unusual standard governs the conduct	15:32
	of some folk, even some you know.	15:36
	But its hardly the ethic of John.	15:40
	Who is my neighbor is still a question	15:46
	tantalizing unpresent soul searching,	15:49
	which refuses to stay in the background.	15:53
	Jesus suggests that maybe the best way	16:02
	to kill an enemy is to make a friend out of them.	16:05
	The third part of our scripture lesson finds Jesus	16:09
	asking His disciples very pertinent and comfortably for Him	16:16
	a very timely question: who do men say that I am?	16:20
	They gave Him good answers. A second John The Baptist.	16:29
	Elijah came back to life, a prophet.	16:37
	And the new Testament offers utter responses	16:43
	when I left the Rabbi, not your teacher, but my teacher.	16:46
	Rabbi. Messiah. The anointed of God.	16:56
	The only question is to be thankful for	17:03
	mans search for meaning.	17:08
	(indistinct)	17:10
	In the beginning was the Lord God,	17:11
	in the beginning was the meaning.	17:14
	And the Lord God the meaning was	17:15
	with God and the meaning was God	17:18
	and the meaning became the mysterious glory of Jesus.	17:19
	A son of God, the son of God,	17:28
	then we creep down in the long history of the church.	17:34
	Try their skill in answering Lord, even Lord of Lords	17:38
	The only begotten son of God. Very God to very God,	17:42
	the second person of the Blessed Trinity.	17:46
	Does one have to believe all this to be a Christian?	17:49
	I'm not sure one can.	17:53
	But what I am sure, is that whatever one thinks	17:56
	about the darkness of Jesus we ought to have	18:01
	a great reverence for the problems behind them.	18:08
	And the question that caused such answers	18:15
	because these assertions about Jesus have all to do	18:21
	without wonder of God and man,	18:26
	and God's relationship with man	18:31
	and our relationship with other men.	18:34
	And the impact that Jesus made on this contemporary.	18:38
	And on the centuries that followed it.	18:43
	Jesus may be disputed, He may even be reputed	18:46
	but He shouldn't be ignored.	18:54
	When one is asking serious questions,	18:58
	be serious and patient and in good faith.	19:02
	There is only time to mention the 6th and last question	19:07
	and it must be asked at least.	19:12
	It's Joe's question of mans perineurial question.	19:13
	If a man dies, shall he live again?	19:22
	The old testament book almost unanimously answers no.	19:28
	But between the testament of 165 BC	19:34
	until the ministry of Jesus,	19:40
	a tentative and then more certain yes was given.	19:42
	At Easter, the hop of the Christian faith	19:47
	(indistinct).	19:52
	We out of church centered on the resurrection.	19:56
	As the answer to Joes puzzle closes.	20:01
	And the answer of man, our head and our heart.	20:06
	What came together in conjunction for it to understand?	20:11
	It shouldn't surprise me that sermons in this	20:20
	university chapel will raise such questions,	20:22
	while the liturgy affirms such answers	20:27
	the job of education is to ask questions.	20:31
	You can say "alright sir and the job of religion	20:35
	is to give the answer to questions"	20:39
	Yes the job of religion is also to understand the question.	20:41
	So that the answers may be tested.	20:46
	So we shall ask questions here about God and man	20:52
	and God and man and our neighbor,	20:56
	Jesus and life after death.	21:00
	Do you remember, especially those of you who are freshman	21:05
	one line that the faithful wrote in mans search for meaning.	21:09
	Life ultimately means taking the responsibility	21:15
	to find the right answer to its problem.	21:20
	And to fulfill the costs,	21:26
	which is constantly set for each individual.	21:29
	Questions, problems, answers,	21:33
	responsibility and applying the answers to the tasks	21:38
	that life sends.	21:43
	It's a good question.	21:46
	We shall be right here to help you in it.	21:50
	Almighty and eternal God who has given hearts to love thee,	22:06
	wills to serve thee and minds to know thee.	22:10
	Encourage us to use our minds on the great question.	22:14
	For the end that we may serve thee with our minds	22:21
	as well as with our hearts and wills.	22:25
	For thy greater glory.	22:30
	Amen.	22:33
	(organ plays)	22:39
	(choir sings)	22:52

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "What's the Question?" Opening Sunday (September 22, 1968)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r48915s4b

Date:

September 22, 1968

Speaker:

Cleland, James T. (James Tough), 1903-1974

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0448
ref6099_08m
uachapelsermaud
duke:628447
dcrau002439
ark:/87924/r48915s4b
ea2fe87a-7006-45cc-aae6-8da7ad0c72e2

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

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North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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

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James T. Cleland - "What's the Question?" Opening Sunday (September 22, 1968)

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1. James T. Cleland - "What's the Question?" (September 22, 1968)

Duke University Archives

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James T. Cleland - "What's the Question?" Opening Sunday (September 22, 1968)

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