McMurry S. Richey - "A Charitable Man Is the True Lover of God" (November 17, 1963)

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-	And so with grateful hearts,	0:06
	we laid today these offerings before thee. Amen	0:08
	(organ upbeat music)	0:17
-	The Academic Community, and the church	0:50
	may not need with Shakespeare to find tongues and trees,	0:53
	books in the running Brooks sermons in stones.	0:58
	But our text and titled today	1:04
	are written in stone.	1:06
	Where he, who runs may read if you will,	1:10
	"A charitable man is the true lover of God."	1:15
	Is carved in stone in letters almost a foot high,	1:21
	not far from where we are just now.	1:25
	And where we may read it daily	1:29
	as we cross the chapel court,	1:30
	if we see it.	1:34
	One of the fascinating characteristics	1:38
	of this Gothic architecture	1:41
	is a striking diversity almost swallowed up	1:44
	in the unity of the whole	1:49
	and the uniformity of the style and material.	1:52
	The visitor or newcomer to Duke	1:56
	is likely to remark this harmony, unity, uniformity.	1:59
	Staying a while, he may discern more variety.	2:08
	What Professor Blackburn's lovely book	2:13
	on the architecture of Duke University terms,	2:16
	"The restlessness and irregularity of the Gothic.	2:19
	Towers of different heights,	2:24
	one massive, another more aspiring and delicate,	2:27
	flat roofs, high angled peaks here and there	2:32
	and unexpected parapet,	2:36
	chimneys of many shapes and stuff,	2:39
	residence halls now two, now five stories high."	2:43
	And as Dr. Blackburn reports,	2:47
	"Different periods of Gothic style	2:49
	influential in quite differing buildings."	2:53
	The varying details of symbolism and embellishment	2:57
	hold even more of mystery and surprise for the observant.	3:02
	Even after years of walking the campus nearly every day,	3:08
	the dozens of carved stone shields	3:13
	representing the arts, the elements,	3:16
	the seals of great universities and schools of medicine	3:18
	and makers of books,	3:22
	and carved griffins, grotesques, bosses	3:24
	where ribs of ceilings join	3:28
	with all manner of grimacing faces	3:31
	of students hearted study, no doubt	3:34
	or thinking of their professors	3:36
	and other symbols to surprise us	3:39
	and challenge our interpretation.	3:41
	Almost any old timer among us	3:44
	might discover something new, yet quite old, this day.	3:47
	But there is one symbol on our campus	3:54
	which awaits no search and needs no such interpretation.	3:57
	Before a visitor is aware of the rest of the university,	4:04
	his eyes claimed by this chapel	4:07
	and he must know why it is here.	4:11
	"I want the central building to be a church." Said Mr. Duke.	4:15
	As plans were being made for this university,	4:20
	a great towering church	4:24
	which will dominate all of the surrounding buildings	4:27
	because such an edifice would be bound	4:31
	to have a profound influence on the spiritual life	4:34
	of the young men and young women who come here.	4:38
	This great towering church stands here	4:43
	at the center of the campus	4:47
	to take every thought captive	4:49
	to the Lord of all that is true and real and good.	4:51
	Not for the dominance of dogma,	4:55
	but for grateful acknowledgement of the gift	4:59
	of our being and our new being.	5:02
	The God inspired search for truth,	5:06
	the sharing of such knowledge	5:09
	and its use in the service of men	5:12
	that ought to be playing for every newcomer	5:16
	and old timer on this campus.	5:18
	But what of are the epigram with which we began?	5:23
	Where is it and why is it there?	5:25
	And what has it meant to say to us?	5:28
	It was a surprise to me	5:32
	and even more, have I've been surprised	5:34
	to find that others have faced it thousands of times	5:36
	without seeing it.	5:39
	I've been a student here for several years,	5:41
	before I looked up from the chapel court	5:44
	and saw stretch between the rounded turrets	5:47
	flanking the gabbled end of the dining hall	5:51
	that reminding, accusing text in stone,	5:54
	"A charitable man is the true lover of God".	6:00
	There it was, plain and commanding	6:06
	where every student, staff member and visitor	6:08
	might daily see and heed.	6:12
	Why had I not read it before?	6:16
	And why haven't you?	6:19
	Is there a parable in our common inability	6:22
	to see such a plain, artless and obvious truth?	6:27
	Are we too rushed, too occupied	6:33
	with ourselves and our concerns,	6:36
	too blind, too cast down, too unwilling to acknowledge it?	6:40
	Perhaps such a parable is significant to us	6:47
	only if the epigram says something we need	6:49
	but fail to hear. Does it?	6:54
	Or is it too trite to deserve our notice?	6:58
	I must confess that I waited years	7:03
	before I could bring myself to preach upon it	7:05
	a few years back and to speak further upon it today.	7:07
	Perhaps the prior question is,	7:14
	why were those words blazed in there	7:16
	before unseeing eyes?	7:19
	Could it be that this is a word	7:24
	to the faculty and students of the Divinity School	7:25
	who look daily across this open quadrangle	7:29
	toward the student union?	7:32
	Is this a way of saying to us,	7:34
	beware you are much talk about God and man,	7:37
	not just words but deeds are called for.	7:43
	And deeds of charity at that.	7:46
	It is not enough to say, "Lord, Lord"	7:49
	and do not what your Lord is bidding.	7:52
	Remember the parable of the last judgment	7:55
	and all those who had, or had not served Christ	7:57
	through loving service of their needy fellows.	8:02
	That would be a salutary word for us to hear.	8:05
	And would it go onto warrant a peril	8:10
	to the professionally religious?	8:12
	Would it say, "Familiarity with the holy, verbal familiarity	8:15
	may hide the holy and its claims upon us,	8:21
	allowing us to insulate ourselves from God's claim	8:25
	with grave or glib talk about him."	8:30
	Or does the epigram simply say to us	8:36
	at the Divinity School,	8:39
	the intellectual love of God,	8:41
	however exalted your theological inquiry	8:43
	and scholarship is not enough.	8:46
	Clothe with the divine reality confronting you	8:50
	and do his will among men.	8:54
	Or perhaps this text in stone is reminding us	8:58
	how down to earth Christianity is, after all.	9:02
	Did not Archbishop William Temple say	9:06
	that Christianity is the most materialistic of religions?	9:10
	It is relevant to such homely, daily matters	9:16
	as breaking bread together in brotherly fellowship	9:19
	with whoever comes our way in the dining hall,	9:23
	but relevant to where men do not have food.	9:27
	Granted that theologs need such admonitions, but times,	9:34
	surely such a prominently placed message	9:38
	must be meant for more than these.	9:41
	Could it be saying some of the same things and more	9:44
	to all the worshipers going to, and from this chapel?	9:47
	This is not quite the word of an Amos	9:52
	preaching denunciations around the temple	9:55
	to priests and worshipers declaring for God,	9:57
	"I hate, I despise your feast	10:01
	and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.	10:03
	Take away from me the noise of your songs.	10:07
	To the melody of your hearts I will not listen,	10:10
	but let justice roll down like waters	10:13
	and righteousness like an ever flowing stream."	10:17
	No, this graven text does not decry our piety or prayers,	10:21
	our exalted service of worship in song	10:28
	and prayer and ministry of the word.	10:31
	It is not a matter of either or,	10:35
	either worship or justice.	10:39
	But neither is it a matter	10:44
	of that other pair of conjunctions, both, and,	10:45
	both worship and justice.	10:50
	Rather, it is another yet,	10:54
	and perhaps a more demanding one.	10:56
	Saying therefore, worship God who loves.	11:00
	Therefore charity. But what does charity mean?	11:06
	Although a dictionary may not offer us much more	11:15
	than a series of varied customary meanings,	11:18
	consider for a start a range of connotations	11:21
	in the Oxford Universal Dictionary,	11:24
	charity. Christian love,	11:27
	especially the Christian love of our fellow men.	11:31
	Love, natural affection, spontaneous goodness.	11:35
	A disposition to judge hopefully,	11:40
	of men and their actions	11:43
	and to make allowance for their shortcomings.	11:45
	Fairness, equity, benevolence especially to the poor,	11:48
	charitableness, arms giving, arms,	11:53
	a bequest, foundation, institution and so forth	11:58
	for the benefit of others	12:02
	especially of the poor or helpless.	12:03
	So have varied meanings	12:07
	registered in the language of the race.	12:09
	Some to times reflecting deeply	12:12
	the message of the New Testament.	12:14
	All of this sounds pretty practical, however,	12:17
	and down to earth.	12:20
	And it points us back to that eminently practical,	12:22
	ethically searching First Letter of John	12:27
	from which we heard this morning.	12:29
	If anyone has the world's good	12:32
	and sees his brother in need	12:35
	yet closes his heart against him,	12:37
	how does God's love abide in him?	12:40
	Little children, let us not love in word or speech,	12:44
	but indeed and in truth.	12:49
	Or again, if anyone says, "I love God"	12:52
	and hates his brother, he is a liar.	12:56
	For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen	13:00
	cannot love God whom he has not seen.	13:05
	That epigram in stone may be there	13:10
	to remind all of us what the true love of God requires.	13:14
	Lest we leave the chapel	13:19
	too much at ease in conscience.	13:22
	And how far would it push the test	13:25
	of our love of God?	13:29
	To check on our love at boundaries of creed	13:31
	or country or color.	13:35
	And how deeply would it test the ambivalence	13:40
	of love and hostility	13:43
	within our very closest relationships?	13:45
	Is this why we may have worshiped here a hundred Sundays	13:50
	and never seen that warning spelled out large letters	13:56
	right before our eyes?	14:00
	"A charitable man is a true lover of God".	14:02
	But are these words directed primarily	14:08
	to chapel worshipers after all?	14:11
	Are they not published openly for all to see, who will?	14:15
	Whether worshipers or not, and on every day?	14:20
	Do they perhaps represent some high humanitarian impatience	14:26
	over the intricacies and preoccupations of religions?	14:31
	Or even a humanistic reservation	14:38
	about the reality in claims of God	14:43
	with a strong concern rather, for near	14:46
	and real troubled fellow beings?	14:49
	When might cite Ella Wheeler Wilcox's	14:55
	quatrain of another era,	14:58
	"So many gods, so many creeds,	15:01
	so many paths that wind and wind,	15:04
	when just the art of being kind	15:06
	is all this sad world needs."	15:08
	Now, however justified a plague upon our houses	15:13
	for denominational squabbles over trivia,	15:17
	for straining out nets and swallowing camels,	15:21
	this bland versus hardly worthy	15:25
	of those stones inscribed upon our campus.	15:28
	How glib and cheap our sterner world today	15:33
	has shown that shallow well-meaning optimism	15:38
	of another day to be.	15:42
	With its contentious, let me live in a house	15:44
	by the side of the road and be a friend to man.	15:48
	Yet for all its thinness,	15:52
	it was company to a profound of social concern	15:55
	for the relief of man's estate,	15:58
	a vigorous social gospel movement,	16:02
	which sought to demonstrate in action	16:05
	such words as, "no man has ever seen God",	16:08
	"if we love one another God abides in us",	16:12
	or, "if anyone says, I love God	16:16
	and hates his brother, he is a liar".	16:20
	Moreover, lest we presume to some theological	16:26
	and ecclesiastic monopoly on such love of fellow man,	16:30
	we hear from one after another	16:36
	of the articulate humanists,	16:39
	how essential love is for human life.	16:42
	Even as if to rescue us from religion	16:48
	which allegedly misunderstands and misdirects Bob.	16:51
	Here, and Erich Fromm, for example,	16:56
	among on the psychotherapist,	16:59
	maintaining that love is the answer	17:03
	to the problem of human existence.	17:07
	Mature love, he said, is union under the conditions	17:11
	of preserving one's integrity, one's individuality.	17:15
	Love is an active power in man.	17:20
	A power which breaks through the walls,	17:24
	which separate man from his fellow man.	17:26
	Which unite him with others.	17:29
	Love makes him overcome	17:31
	the sense of isolation and separateness	17:33
	yet it permits him to be himself	17:36
	to retain his integrity.	17:38
	Love, he says, is an activity,	17:40
	an activity primarily giving, not receiving.	17:43
	Love, implies care.	17:48
	Love is the active concern for the life and growth	17:52
	of that which we love.	17:55
	And such care, he goes on to say,	17:58
	such care and concern implied responsibility.	18:01
	Unless responsibility turn	18:05
	into domination and possessiveness.	18:07
	Love implies, respect.	18:09
	And respect requires knowledge.	18:13
	So Erich Fromm calls repeatedly for mature love	18:17
	and the practice of the art of loving.	18:22
	For him, this is humanly possible without God.	18:26
	In deed, the God of most of us, he seems to feel,	18:31
	might prevent such wise wholesome love.	18:36
	But surely someone says,	18:42
	we're getting away from our stone text	18:44
	when we depend on a present day,	18:46
	humanistic psychologist outside the faith	18:48
	to remind us what our own faith	18:51
	has long called for,	18:54
	for this must be an old saying,	18:57
	and one rooted in theistic religion,	18:59
	in the Hebrewaic Christian tradition.	19:03
	A charitable man is the true lover of God.	19:06
	The fact is, I do not know	19:13
	who put those words up there,	19:15
	or what was meant in doing so.	19:18
	Or what was intended by their original author.	19:21
	And no one queried could give me the answers.	19:25
	Can those words yet speak to our condition?	19:30
	Do we want them to?	19:34
	Isn't it pleasant or just to dally with them while	19:37
	as in this morning's discourse?	19:41
	To keep safe distance	19:43
	from real involvement with them?	19:45
	Aren't we in danger of letting ourselves in for something?	19:49
	Something more disturbingly searching,	19:52
	some kiaki guardian probing	19:56
	that shows our very virtues to be sin.	19:59
	Our human love to be, but desire to possess for ourselves?	20:04
	Our love to God, a way of looking out after ourselves?	20:09
	For a long time, I wanted to preach a sermon	20:16
	on this text in stone.	20:19
	It's so charming and so charmingly hidden in plain sight.	20:21
	And such an apt parable for our hiding	20:26
	from reality and its claims.	20:30
	But for just as long, I avoided preaching that sermon	20:33
	for that seemingly charming text in quat word	20:39
	and stone carving is too starkly, simple and clear.	20:44
	Like the telling words of scripture read today,	20:51
	too clearly demanding of our full love to God and man,	20:54
	demanding of our whole selves.	20:59
	So we've come near the end of the sermon	21:03
	and we have protected ourselves against these claims.	21:07
	And isn't this, after all the vindication	21:13
	of the parable we spoke of earlier?	21:15
	We see and yet we see not.	21:18
	Or see not as to heed.	21:22
	What consider what it might mean	21:26
	to heed those words.	21:30
	It might mean a clarifying, saving discovery	21:35
	of what life really is,	21:40
	not just in ideas but in the depth of personal existence,	21:44
	we turn to a dictionary	21:50
	and found some customary connotations	21:51
	of charity or Christian love,	21:54
	we heard from a psychotherapist of love,	21:58
	which involves giving in care,	22:02
	responsible concern, respect, loving knowledge	22:06
	but the essential denotation of love,	22:13
	the divine demonstration	22:17
	is spread through the new Testament	22:20
	and especially in the person and words	22:23
	and deeds and death of Jesus Christ.	22:27
	To read and ponder and yield	22:32
	to that living manifestation	22:35
	of what it means to be a charitable man	22:38
	is to be deeply searched, tried and redeemed	22:42
	from this recurring self-centeredness we all suffer.	22:49
	As the Apostle Paul thought	22:56
	under the influence of the Jesus Christ,	22:57
	if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels	23:01
	but have not love,	23:04
	I am a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.	23:06
	And if I have prophetic powers	23:10
	and understand all mysteries and all knowledge,	23:13
	and if I have all faith,	23:17
	so is to remove of mountains,	23:19
	but have not love, I am nothing.	23:22
	If I give away all I have	23:25
	and if I deliver my body to be burned	23:28
	but have not love, I gain nothing.	23:32
	Love is patient and kind.	23:36
	Love is not jealous or boastful.	23:40
	It is not arrogant or rude.	23:43
	Love does not insist on its own way.	23:47
	It is not irritable or resentful.	23:50
	It does not rejoice in wrong	23:54
	but rejoices in the right.	23:56
	Love, bears all things, believes all things,	23:59
	hopes all things, endures all things.	24:04
	If this is what lies behind this stone text	24:11
	on our minds and in our campus today,	24:17
	it's a sort of punchline for all that we are doing here,	24:23
	not to us in chapel	24:28
	but in classroom,	24:30
	in dormitory, in dining hall	24:34
	in the envisioning of our future	24:39
	and the use of our lives.	24:41
	It seems to be saying to us,	24:44
	pursue all the knowledge and wisdom you can	24:47
	for this is God's.	24:52
	Prepare for the most effective use	24:55
	of your mind and body,	24:58
	for these or God's.	25:01
	Enter tellingly and responsibly into the communal life	25:03
	and do your job, for this is God's.	25:08
	But all of this in the transformed spirit of one who came,	25:13
	not to be ministered unto but to minister,	25:17
	not to be served, but to serve.	25:21
	To use all we have and are, for our brothers.	25:25
	To be steward servant of others good.	25:30
	Both the love of God and loved	25:35
	and the love called for in us	25:39
	are exhibited all over the pages of the New Testament	25:41
	and here and there down the slopes of Christian history.	25:45
	Beloved, if God so loved us,	25:49
	we also ought to love one another.	25:52
	There is the standard,	25:56
	there is the imperative.	25:59
	But this is not only a claim,	26:04
	an imperative, an order or a law.	26:07
	It is basically a gift.	26:12
	The New Testament is proclaiming	26:16
	and this church, this great towering church,	26:19
	this chapel is here to proclaim	26:24
	that life and new life are really a gift	26:27
	to disclose that the meaning of life in love of others	26:33
	is a divine enablement.	26:38
	A catching up of ourselves	26:41
	into what God has done and is doing.	26:42
	What makes sense of human existence.	26:46
	In this, the love of God was made manifest among us	26:51
	that God sent his only son into the world	26:55
	so that we might live through him.	26:57
	Beloved, if God so loved us,	27:02
	we also ought to love one another,	27:05
	is the outcome of that gift.	27:09
	We love because he first loved us.	27:13
	When this is translated out of the terms,	27:19
	the familiar terms of love,	27:23
	into the everyday actions	27:26
	of personal existence and relationships,	27:29
	does it not mean that we are able to accept and care for	27:34
	and be concerned profoundly about our fellows	27:39
	because we know that our own life	27:43
	and our acceptance, and our belonging are a gift.	27:47
	A gift made plain, a gift proclaimed by this chapel,	27:52
	and a gift pointed to indeed,	27:59
	by that stone text,	28:03
	across the end of the dining hall.	28:06
	"A charitable man is a true lover of God".	28:09
	The real meaning of our life	28:14
	is in that openness toward,	28:16
	that concern for others	28:19
	which may underlie all we are and have and do.	28:22
	If we allow ourselves to be brought into trust	28:28
	into that spirit, in the very heart of things	28:31
	manifest in Jesus Christ, our Lord.	28:35
	Let us pray.	28:39
	Oh Lord, our God,	28:49
	what thou has said to us in Jesus Christ, our Lord,	28:51
	do thou work in our lives and our relationships.	28:56
	And now may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,	29:01
	the love of God, the communion of his holy spirit	29:05
	be with us all.	29:09
	(organ upbeat music)	29:13

Item Info

Title:

McMurry S. Richey - "A Charitable Man Is the True Lover of God" (November 17, 1963)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4bc3xz57

Date:

November 17, 1963

Speaker:

Richey, McMurry S.

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0247
ref5699_4is
uachapelsermaud
duke:628527
dcrau002252
ark:/87924/r4bc3xz57
a631b14d-2ed5-49f4-bb66-6275e333e02b

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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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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McMurry S. Richey - "A Charitable Man Is the True Lover of God" (November 17, 1963)

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1. McMurry S. Richey - "A Charitable Man Is the True Lover of God" (November 17, 1963)

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McMurry S. Richey - "A Charitable Man Is the True Lover of God" (November 17, 1963)

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