James T. Cleland - "Zechariah 14" (January 9, 1966)

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	(soft music)	0:03
-	Let us pray.	0:29
	Let the words of my mouth	0:33
	and the meditations of our hearts	0:36
	be acceptable in thy sight.	0:38
	Oh Lord our strength and our redeemer, amen.	0:42
	There are probably some of us in chapel this morning	0:59
	who still read a chapter of the Bible every day.	1:05
	We began to do this as youngsters	1:11
	and the usage has continued.	1:14
	If anyone asked us the reason for this daily Bible reading,	1:18
	we might have to admit that it's merely	1:23
	a matter of continuing custom.	1:26
	We could defend the practice by appealing to the dictum	1:31
	that it's never wise to give up a good habit	1:35
	until we have something better to put in its place.	1:39
	Now, in this chapter of parody routine,	1:45
	we regularly run across verses that baffle	1:49
	or intrigue or tantalize us.	1:54
	I came across two such verses,	1:58
	and I want to share with you my reflections on them.	2:01
	They are in Zechariah, the last chapter,	2:06
	the passage read as our scripture lesson.	2:12
	Now Old Testament scholars have divided	2:18
	the book of Zechariah into two parts.	2:20
	The first part chapters one to eight	2:25
	is a fairly straight forward commentary	2:28
	on the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem,	2:32
	after the return from the Babylonian exile around 520 BC.	2:36
	But the second half, chapters nine to 14	2:44
	is almost a no man's land for the lay reader of holy writ,	2:50
	that is no agreement among the scholars as to its date,	2:58
	its authorship, or the reason for its writing.	3:04
	Therefore there is no unanimity as to its meaning.	3:10
	Its date is placed anywhere from 333 BC	3:15
	time of Alexander the Great to 165 BC,	3:21
	the time of Judas Maccabaeus,	3:25
	or else here and there indiscriminately	3:28
	throughout that span of years.	3:31
	Worse than that, the chapters read in places	3:34
	like a transcript of spiritual delirium treatments.	3:40
	It's not an easy book to understand,	3:47
	even with the help of a good commentary	3:49
	and two verses in the last chapter,	3:52
	chapter 14, verses 20 and 21,	3:55
	the last two verses in the book	3:59
	are the ones which pulled me up with a jerk	4:01
	and led to this sermon.	4:04
	Here they are, "And on that day,	4:06
	there shall be inscribed on the bells of the horses,	4:10
	HOLY TO THE LORD.	4:15
	And the pots in the house of the Lord	4:19
	shall be as the bowls before the altar	4:21
	and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred	4:24
	to the Lord of hosts so that all who sacrificed	4:28
	may come and take of them	4:32
	and boil the flesh of the sacrifice in them.	4:34
	And that shall no longer be a trader	4:38
	in the house of the Lord of hosts on that day."	4:41
	Now, what honor are we gonna do with that?	4:47
	Well, let's see.	4:51
	First we better find what Second Zechariah is getting at,	4:55
	unless this is Third Zechariah,	5:00
	as some scholars think.	5:02
	Chapter 14 is an apocalyptic description of the new earth,	5:05
	which will be the outcome	5:12
	of the last days of this present age.	5:14
	It is a pep talk to the faithful,	5:19
	encouraging them in the midst of national disaster	5:23
	with the hope of ultimate victory.	5:27
	When God himself moves in to take over	5:30
	after our last tremendous battle,	5:35
	God with the assistance of the heavenly hosts	5:39
	will set up his kingdom in Jerusalem,	5:41
	which will become the international holy city.	5:45
	Then everything will be done in accordance with his will,	5:51
	no matter what is done,	5:57
	it will be holy because God's okay	6:00
	will be stamped upon it.	6:05
	Not to dramatize that fact the author gives	6:07
	the two simple surprising examples,	6:10
	on the bells of the horses there will be inscribed	6:15
	Holy to the Lord.	6:20
	Now, these are the words Holy to the Lord,	6:25
	which the Lord decreed should be inscribed	6:30
	on the breastplate of the high priest.	6:35
	Now that's quite a jump	6:40
	from the sacrificial vestments of the high priest	6:43
	to a horse's bridle.	6:47
	And to drive home this point of universal holiness	6:50
	in the redeemed Jerusalem,	6:55
	the prophet offers another illustration.	6:57
	Jerusalem will be so free from anything unclean	7:01
	that any pot may be taken at random	7:06
	and used for cooking the sacrificial flesh.	7:11
	There will be no need for merchants, traders	7:16
	to sit in the temple, to sell the pilgrims special vessels,	7:20
	exclusively consecrated to the service of God.	7:25
	Any old pot or pan will do,	7:30
	because everything in the kingdom of God	7:34
	has his imprimatur upon him.	7:37
	Now, what is the universal truth	7:45
	behind these horses bells and those cooking utensils?	7:48
	Isn't it something like this?	7:54
	In the kingdom of God, the common everyday life	7:57
	will be so completely under his eye,	8:03
	that that will be a thorough smashing	8:08
	of the barrier between the sacred and the secular.	8:12
	This piece of equipment will not be stamped sacred.	8:19
	And that piece of paraphernalia will not be labeled secular.	8:23
	This mode of action will not be designated holy	8:29
	and that form of behavior will not be termed profane,	8:33
	but such an interpretation is a way bit too much	8:40
	for most religious folk to swallow.	8:43
	They don't deny that, all will be holy in the new Jerusalem,	8:47
	but they do deny that it has anything to do with horses	8:52
	and kitchen utensils.	8:56
	Only what is sacred on earth	8:59
	will continue to be sacred in heaven.	9:01
	Now that's a disturbing thought.	9:06
	It means, for example, in my own religious tradition,	9:09
	that every day will be a Scottish Sabbath	9:14
	with sermons and psalm singing and Sunday clothes.	9:19
	With no interesting reading, no games,	9:27
	no whistling, no laughter.	9:32
	It will be worse than solemn, it'll be sanctimonious.	9:37
	For others, life in the kingdom	9:45
	will be a little transcription	9:47
	of the revelation of Saint John the Divine.	9:49
	We shall spend our time casting down our golden crowns	9:53
	around the throne on the edge of the glassy sea.	9:58
	A useless occupation, devoid of both dignity and humor.	10:04
	"And a plague on both your houses	10:13
	on Scott's Presbyterianism and on literalism,"	10:16
	says the unknown author of Second Zechariah.	10:19
	You misunderstand God and religion and life.	10:23
	All that we normally do on earth eating, sleeping,	10:29
	working, playing will be continued as the kind of living	10:33
	which God believes to be natural.	10:38
	That is in accordance with his good pleasure.	10:42
	Driving a horse will be a religious action	10:47
	as religious as formal worship.	10:52
	"As the breakdown of any barrier	10:55
	between the sacred and the secular,	10:57
	holiness is a universal," that's how Henry Jones puts it.	11:00
	Religious life is nothing but the secular life	11:07
	devoted to the best we know.	11:13
	Professor Waldo Beach explicated this idea	11:19
	a few months ago in a sermon from this pulpit,	11:22
	he was defining in conjunction and in contrast three words,	11:27
	secular, sacred, profane.	11:32
	Now, if I interpret him correctly,	11:38
	the secular is the raw material	11:42
	of both the sacred and the profane.	11:48
	The secular is a religious, non religious	11:54
	in that it is the day in, day out stuff	12:00
	of all existence in the world.	12:04
	The sacred is religious in that	12:09
	it is the secular devoted to God.	12:12
	The profane is anti religious	12:18
	in that it is the secular twisted and warped away	12:22
	from any divine perspective.	12:28
	And the closing verses of Zechariah,	12:31
	"Look forward to a day when there would be nothing profane	12:35
	and nothing secular for all life, all normal life,	12:40
	all everyday life would be willingly,	12:47
	unconsciously live to the glory of God	12:50
	and the wellbeing of the beloved community."	12:54
	"Now all this is quite interesting," you charitably remark,	13:03
	but what has it to do with us?	13:08
	Certainly what on earth has it to do with us?	13:11
	The end of the world has not come,	13:16
	God has not set up the new Jerusalem.	13:19
	Even if this apocalyptic prophet	13:23
	has predicted with accuracy the life of the kingdom,	13:26
	it isn't here yet.	13:29
	So what's the point of all this for us?	13:32
	What is the point?	13:34
	Well, hold your horses a minute.	13:37
	According to the Christian faith,	13:41
	with the life and preaching of Jesus Christ	13:44
	and with the establishment of the church	13:49
	under the guidance and control of the holy spirit,	13:52
	the kingdom has been inaugurated.	13:56
	We who claim the name of Christian	14:02
	are already members of the kingdom	14:05
	and the church is a colony of the kingdom on earth,	14:10
	according to Saint Paul.	14:16
	And we are supposed to behave so far as in as lies	14:19
	as if we belonged to the kingdom.	14:24
	The final advent of the new Jerusalem is not yet,	14:27
	but that is where our citizenship lies.	14:32
	And even here and now we must conduct ourselves	14:37
	to the best of God's ability in us as his folk.	14:42
	One way we can do this is to make sure	14:49
	that our daily work and conversation	14:51
	are ordinary going out and coming in	14:55
	are worthy of God's seal of approval,	15:00
	of the descriptive adjective holy, acceptable to him.	15:04
	You know what this means in our rising	15:12
	and eating and sleeping.	15:14
	We transform the secular into the sacred	15:18
	when God is recognized as the center of all life,	15:22
	we awake with God.	15:28
	We may say to him, "Lord, as we go to our work this day,	15:33
	help us to take pleasure there in."	15:40
	Or in the rush of our hectic academic routine we may pray,	15:45
	"Lord thou knowest, how busy we must be this day.	15:51
	If we forget thee, do not thou forget us."	15:58
	That was first said before a battle in 1642,	16:06
	and then it meals we realize that food is not something	16:13
	to be considered either as fuel or as the be all	16:16
	and end all of existence.	16:20
	It is a sustaining provision	16:23
	for which grace is gladly spoken.	16:27
	Here is a chuckling grace for breakfast,	16:33
	unless you're on a low fat diet.	16:37
	One that is both unusual and completely Orthodox	16:40
	"Our thanks for eggs and buttered toast.	16:46
	Father, son, and holy ghost."	16:49
	(audience chuckling softly)	16:52
	Cooking may be a holy act	16:57
	and the cleaning up a prayer of thanksgiving.	17:00
	And when we lie down we may go to sleep	17:04
	under the eye of God, into thy hands oh Lord	17:09
	we commend ourselves this night and all who are dear to us.	17:14
	Or watch with those who wait or watch or weep tonight	17:19
	and give a dine angels charge over those who sleep.	17:29
	And that's our home and our college	17:34
	become more than a dormitory and a cafeteria	17:38
	with a garage or a parking lot attached.	17:42
	The secular stuff of life becomes holy.	17:47
	And think of this transformation of the secular	17:56
	into the sacred in the church.	17:59
	Church is not merely the place of the great Sunday service	18:04
	and then occasional celebration of the Lord's supper.	18:09
	It is the location where something of the quince in life	18:13
	is sought in baptism and the quiver of life	18:19
	is sought in the funeral service.	18:25
	It just that segment of space set aside	18:28
	for the sanctification of the whole of life,	18:32
	not a part of life, of the whole of life.	18:36
	And that's why in Glasgow Cathedral, for example,	18:40
	there is an annual service for the churching.	18:44
	That is, the churching of the town council	18:47
	after the elections.	18:52
	I even had a service last year	18:55
	for the Glasgow & District Churches Badminton Association.	18:57
	That's why that has been in years gone by	19:04
	and duke had service in the chapel during Greek week,	19:07
	which may have reduced the number of incidents	19:12
	or dirty rushing, I don't know.	19:15
	And do you know that some years ago at 8:30	19:19
	on a Saturday morning before the Duke Navy football game,	19:22
	15 Protestant members of the Navy squad	19:28
	received the bread and wine from the Lord's table	19:32
	in the Memorial Chapel?	19:35
	Now that was not for them, a form of big magic.	19:38
	If it had been, they would not have requested	19:44
	the Dean of the Duke Chapel to be the celebrant.	19:47
	These boys we're offering their athletic skills to God	19:52
	they had a precedent in the Juggler of Notre Dame.	19:56
	And I remember one year when a divinity student	20:00
	came to me and asked me to help him prepare	20:02
	an order of worship for the dedication of a furnace.	20:04
	My first was ejaculation was,	20:10
	"Glory be to God, a furnace?"	20:12
	(laughing softly)	20:15
	And he said, "Why not?	20:18
	We dedicate alters and Bibles, pulpits and baptist trees.	20:20
	My congregation has saved up for three years for a furnace.	20:26
	Why can't we dedicate it?	20:31
	It means much to them	20:33
	it therefore probably means much to God."	20:35
	I reminded him there wasn't much in the Bible about furnaces	20:40
	and what was there was not particularly pleasant.	20:45
	(laughing loudly)	20:48
	But he persisted and we wrote it and he used it.	20:52
	And he told me afterwards,	20:58
	"When the prayer of dedication was over,	21:01
	the furnace went off with a glorious bang."	21:04
	(audience laughing loudly)	21:08
	See what it did it turned the prayer into a (indistinct)	21:10
	this is the response.	21:14
	Now that furnace has inscribed upon it,	21:17
	even if invisibly, Holy to the Lord.	21:21
	We lack imagination in our use of the sanctuary,	21:27
	so often, too often, that's because we continue	21:32
	to draw a line between the sacred	21:37
	and the secular to markedly.	21:39
	We try to save holy from infection,	21:42
	it's a laudable motive,	21:47
	but sometimes we are over squeamish	21:50
	in a way that God isn't, thank God.	21:53
	But is our everyday life on earth really holy?	21:57
	Of course it isn't.	22:02
	We're not yet in the kingdom completely.	22:03
	We're still in the world we are of necessity to the world.	22:07
	And it's wise to remember how the world is defined	22:11
	society has organized a part from God.	22:15
	And yet there is a chance for witness, for holy behavior.	22:20
	10 years ago, I worshiped in Glasgow university	22:26
	at a special service in the chapel	22:29
	a service for the commemoration of benefactors.	22:32
	And at one point in the service,	22:38
	the rubric reads the congregation standing,	22:39
	the principal shall read the role of benefactors	22:43
	and the call to commemoration.	22:46
	His first words are, "It is outbound in duty	22:49
	to commemorate thankfully before all mighty God,	22:53
	all those are benefactors by whose liberality	22:56
	this college and university	22:59
	has maintained the studies of godliness and sound learning."	23:02
	And beginning with the Bishop of Glasgow in 1451,	23:07
	he comes right down the centuries.	23:12
	And the most moving thing to me at the service was	23:14
	he suddenly said, "And do not let us forget	23:17
	these benefactors," and pointed to the War Memorial	23:21
	to world War I on this side to world War II on this side.	23:26
	For arts and science, medicine, engineering, and law,	23:33
	as well as divinity are holy to the Lord.	23:39
	December 11th in this Year of Grace falls on a Sunday	23:46
	and December 11 is Founder's Day.	23:52
	Would it not be appropriate especially	23:57
	in the light of our motto,	23:59
	(speaking in foreign language)	24:01
	to have the university service of worship that morning	24:04
	be one of great and the glad thanksgiving	24:08
	for those dead and alive,	24:12
	who we established our academic heritage.	24:15
	If we believe that, it's time to start planning for it now.	24:19
	Do you know how the midwinter dance	24:27
	at one of the new England prep schools ends?	24:28
	With prayers and anthems in the chapel?	24:32
	How do the students and their dates react?	24:38
	They are embarrassed to mortification, the first time.	24:41
	And then in succeeding years,	24:47
	they actually look forward to it.	24:49
	Why are so many folk married in church	24:53
	and not by a JP or a judge?	24:57
	Custom?	25:01
	Of course.	25:02
	Conviction?	25:04
	Sure.	25:06
	The bride's desire or the bride's mother's desire	25:08
	for a show, bless their hearts.	25:11
	(audience laughing loudly)	25:15
	But not entirely.	25:17
	They want this new joint life to be holy to the Lord	25:21
	and if they remember that it can be,	25:26
	and the secular is given the impromptu of the holy.	25:30
	Think of this yourselves regarding your own life	25:36
	in the university at study, in the dorm, while eating,	25:38
	in the gymnasium, dating.	25:45
	Is Holy to the Lord an impossible inscription?	25:48
	If so, why?	25:54
	How do you think Jesus our Lord would react to this sermon?	25:57
	He was born in a stable,	26:02
	he grew up in an ordinary home,	26:05
	his contemporaries by and large missed his spiritual genius	26:08
	because they insisted on the line	26:12
	between the sacred and the secular	26:14
	and dismissed him with a comment,	26:17
	"He's a carpenter, we know his family."	26:18
	He found God in the commonplace,	26:23
	in the flowers of the field, in the howl of a sparrow,	26:25
	in the change of the year,	26:30
	in a few cents in a collection plate.	26:32
	And before he died he took the ordinary food	26:36
	of a Judean table, bread and wine	26:39
	and made it so holy that 20 centuries later,	26:44
	we keep on repeating his actions.	26:49
	Maybe he had read Second Zachariah	26:53
	and behaved as if the kingdom were here	26:57
	and maybe we are supposed to go and do likewise	27:02
	so far as we can, God helping us.	27:06
	What more shall I say, justice.	27:12
	He had again the last verses	27:16
	over the last chapter of Zechariah.	27:18
	"And on that day there shall be inscribed	27:21
	on the bells of the horses, Holy to the Lord.	27:24
	And every part in Jerusalem and Judah	27:31
	shall be sacred to the Lord of hosts,	27:33
	so that all who sacrifice may come and take of them	27:36
	and boil the flesh of the sacrifice in them."	27:41
	It is a consummation devoutly to be wished.	27:47
	Let us pray.	27:54
	All mighty God who created all things	27:59
	and saw that they were good.	28:02
	Teach us to call nothing which though has made	28:05
	common or unclean, but to use it well	28:09
	as the very tough about existence.	28:13
	So thy glory and our benefit in the spirit of thy son.	28:16
	And may the blessing of God come upon you abundantly,	28:22
	may it keep you strong and tranquil	28:27
	in the truth of his promises through Jesus Christ, our Lord.	28:29
	(singing softly)	28:40

Item Info

Title:

James T. Cleland - "Zechariah 14" (January 9, 1966)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r49z94d1f

Date:

January 9, 1966

Speaker:

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

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0321
ref5847_ais
uachapelsermaud
duke:628280
dcrau002318
ark:/87924/r49z94d1f
e2dfcb2f-3e20-40b3-981d-d68f538f739a

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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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 - "Zechariah 14" (January 9, 1966)

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1. James T. Cleland - "Zechariah 14:20-21" (January 9, 1966)

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James T. Cleland - "Zechariah 14" (January 9, 1966)

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