Stuart C. Henry - "Loneliness" (February 17, 1974)

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	(gentle liturgical music)	0:17
	(gentle liturgical music)	0:45
	(lively liturgical music)	1:29
	(lively piano music)	1:43
	(lively piano music)	2:01
	(lively piano music)	2:19
	(lively piano music)	2:46
	(lively piano music)	3:10
	(lively piano music)	3:21
	(lively piano music)	4:16
	(lively piano music)	4:50
	(lively liturgical music)	5:16
	(lively liturgical music)	5:40
-	Dearly beloved, to praise God honestly	6:03
	moves us to acknowledge and confess our sins before him,	6:07
	our heavenly father,	6:11
	with a humble and obedient heart.	6:13
	To the end that we may obtain forgiveness	6:16
	by his infinite goodness and mercy.	6:18
	Therefore, I beseech you as many as are here present,	6:22
	to accompany me with a pure heart and humble voice	6:27
	and confess our sins to all mighty God.	6:31
	Oh Lord, holy and righteous God,	6:44
	we acknowledged before you	6:47
	that we do not fear you,	6:49
	and that we do not love you above all things.	6:51
	We do not delight in prayer nor take pleasure in your word.	6:56
	We do not really love our neighbor.	7:01
	We lack the conscience	7:04
	that should accompany our Christian profession.	7:05
	Our hearts are divided,	7:09
	crossed by doubts and guilty desires.	7:11
	We accuse ourselves before you oh God,	7:14
	we implore you, whose nature and whose name is love	7:18
	to forgive us, and in forgiving, to heal us,	7:22
	so that in our lives something will finally be changed.	7:27
	Amen.	7:31
	Let us continue our confession in the quiet of the moment	7:33
	and the privacy of ourselves.	7:37
	(gentle piano music)	7:54
	(gentle liturgical music)	8:22
	(gentle liturgical music)	8:54
	(gentle liturgical music)	9:20
	Hear these words of assurance of God's pardon.	10:57
	By Christ's death in his body of flesh and blood,	11:01
	God has reconciled you to himself.	11:04
	He rescued us from the domain of darkness	11:08
	and brought us away into the kingdom of his dear son,	11:11
	in whom our release is secured, and our sins forgiven.	11:14
	Let us pray together the Lord's Prayer.	11:19
	Our father who art in heaven,	11:22
	hallowed be thy name,	11:25
	thy kingdom come,	11:27
	thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.	11:29
	Give us this day our daily bread,	11:33
	and forgive us our trespasses	11:36
	as we forgive those who trespass against us,	11:38
	and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,	11:41
	for thine is the kingdom, and the power,	11:46
	and the glory forever.	11:49
	Amen.	11:51
	Oh Lord, open now our lips.	11:53
-	And our mouth shall proclaim your praise.	11:56
-	Praise ye the Lord.	11:59
-	The Lord's name be praised.	12:01
	(lively piano music)	12:03
	("O Praise ye the Lord")	12:26
	("O Praise ye the Lord")	12:52
	("O Praise ye the Lord")	13:10
-	The reading today is taken from Genesis 32:3-8,	14:02
	and 22-31.	14:07
	"And Jacob sent messengers before him to Esau his brother	14:12
	"in the land of Seir, the country of Edom,	14:15
	"instructing them, thus you shall say to my Lord Esau,	14:18
	"thus says your servant Jacob.	14:23
	"I have sojourned with Laban, and stayed until now.	14:25
	"And I have oxen, asses, flocks,	14:29
	"men servants and maid servants.	14:32
	"And I have sent them to tell my Lord	14:34
	"in order that I might find favor in your sight.	14:36
	"And the messengers returned to Jacob saying,	14:40
	"we came to your brother Esau and he is coming to meet you,	14:43
	"and 400 men with him.	14:47
	"Then Jacob was greatly afraid and distressed,	14:50
	"and he divided the people that were with him	14:53
	"and the flocks, and herds, and the camels	14:56
	"into two companies thinking,	14:58
	"if Esau comes to one company and destroys it,	15:00
	"then the company which has left will escape.	15:03
	"The same night he arose and took his two wives,	15:08
	"his two maids, and his 11 children	15:11
	"and crossed the ford of Jabbok.	15:14
	"He took them and sent them across the stream,	15:16
	"and likewise, everything that he had.	15:19
	"And Jacob was left alone,	15:22
	"and a man wrestled with him until the breaking of the day.	15:24
	"When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob,	15:27
	"he touched the hollow of his thigh,	15:30
	"and Jacob's thigh was put out of joint	15:32
	"as he wrestled with him.	15:34
	"Then he said, 'Let me go for the day is breaking'.	15:36
	"But Jacob said,	15:40
	"'I will not let you go unless you bless me.'	15:41
	"And he said to him, 'What is your name?'	15:44
	"And he said,' Jacob.'	15:47
	"Then he said, 'Your name shall no more be called Jacob,	15:49
	"'but Israel, for you have striven with God and with men	15:54
	"'and have prevailed.'	15:59
	"Then Jacob asked him, 'Tell me I pray your name,'	16:01
	"but he said, 'Why is it that you ask me my name?'	16:04
	"And there he blessed him.	16:08
	"So Jacob called the name of the place Peniel saying,	16:10
	"for I have seen God face to face,	16:13
	"and yet my life is preserved.	16:16
	"The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel	16:19
	"limping because of his thigh."	16:23
	Here ends the reading of the lesson.	16:26
	(lively piano music)	16:29
	(bright liturgical music)	16:38
	(bright liturgical music)	16:59
-	Let us firm our faith.	17:09
-	We are not alone, we live in God's world.	17:11
	We believe in God, who has created and is creating.	17:15
	Who is coming, the true man Jesus,	17:20
	to reconcile and make new.	17:23
	Who works in us and others by his spirit.	17:26
	We trust him.	17:29
	He calls us to be in his church, to celebrate his presence,	17:31
	to love and serve others,	17:36
	to seek justice and resist evil,	17:38
	to proclaim Jesus, crucified and risen,	17:41
	our judge and our hope,	17:44
	in life, in death, in life beyond death,	17:47
	God is with us.	17:51
	We are not alone.	17:53
	Thanks be to God.	17:54
-	The Lord be with you.	17:57
-	And with your spirit.	17:58
-	Let us pray.	18:00
	Oh spirit, most high and holy.	18:10
	Creator of the universe,	18:14
	maker of man and God of love.	18:16
	We lift our hearts to thee	18:20
	with thanks for that which you have richly given us	18:22
	to enjoy.	18:24
	for health and vigor,	18:26
	for the love and care of home,	18:29
	for the joys of friendship,	18:33
	and for every good gift of happiness and strength.	18:35
	We praise thee for the gospel of your love to men,	18:40
	and for the word of salvation to all people.	18:44
	We thank thee for the good hopes,	18:49
	and the precious memories,	18:52
	for the joys that cheer us,	18:55
	and the trials that teach us to put our faith in thee.	18:58
	We come before you, not only as individuals,	19:04
	but as a congregation of those who love thee,	19:08
	and who seek to serve thee.	19:11
	We have pledged ourselves to thee	19:15
	and the fellowship of this church,	19:17
	and have accepted the covenant	19:20
	to walk in peace and helpfulness together.	19:22
	And so this day we lift to thee our prayers of all of us	19:27
	for the sake of each of us,	19:33
	and more especially for those who need thee most of all.	19:36
	Into thy hands we commit the sick,	19:42
	those facing, or having recently faced surgery,	19:45
	those crushed by tasks	19:50
	for which they think themselves incompetent,	19:51
	and those who have lost their grip on life's meaning.	19:55
	We offer today a special prayer for those who are lonely,	20:01
	who sense more than usual, your absence,	20:06
	your silence.	20:10
	During this hour when it seems so very easy	20:13
	to feel your presence,	20:16
	teach us also how through our awareness of your absence,	20:18
	how to speak to you most clearly.	20:24
	Keep us faithful oh Lord,	20:29
	precisely when we need most to be kept faithful.	20:31
	Oh thou, who does govern the world in righteousness	20:37
	and whose judgments are true and righteous all together,	20:40
	grant we beseech thee, that those who rule over us,	20:44
	and who legislate for us may be of one mind	20:49
	to establish justice,	20:53
	and promote the welfare of all our people.	20:55
	Endow all the members of our government	20:59
	with a right understanding,	21:01
	pure purpose, and sound speech.	21:04
	Enable them to rise above all self-seeking	21:08
	to the nobler concerns of public good and human brotherhood.	21:13
	Such is the prayer we lift to thee this day oh Lord,	21:19
	knowing that thou didst understand our need	21:23
	before we uttered it.	21:25
	Yet greater than all of the other needs	21:28
	is the need we have of thee.	21:31
	Receive us we pray,	21:34
	through Jesus Christ our Lord,	21:37
	amen.	21:39
-	In the name of the Father,	22:01
	and the Son, and the Holy Ghost,	22:04
	amen.	22:07
	The Bible,	22:15
	that antique volume which has much to say to us	22:17
	has also much to say about us.	22:23
	We see ourselves in the characters	22:28
	matching across its pages,	22:31
	rich foods, foolish virgins,	22:35
	frightened strangers, gentle philosophers,	22:39
	angry critics, we are all there.	22:44
	Especially familiar to us is the lonely individual.	22:50
	In a way, it is defensible to say that the Bible	22:56
	is a book about lonely people.	23:01
	That is, it is a book about people	23:04
	who learn whatever wisdom they speak to us	23:08
	when they were alone,	23:12
	in solitary encounter with God.	23:14
	A book about people who made decisions for righteousness,	23:18
	or for disgrace by themselves.	23:23
	A book about people who carried crosses	23:27
	or achieved crowns alone.	23:31
	We identify with the characters of the Bible	23:36
	when we see that their loneliness	23:39
	is strikingly like our own,	23:41
	and as such can be reassuring or disturbing.	23:44
	Reassuring as when a desolate woman	23:51
	meets a risen Lord in a deserted graveyard,	23:55
	or unnerving as when a prodigal opens his eyes	24:00
	and looks about him to find his residence a pig sty,	24:05
	his hope gone.	24:10
	But whether the word is one of joy or sorrow,	24:13
	the circumstance which displaces either in our consciousness	24:17
	is that loneliness which attends it,	24:24
	for we are lonely people, each of us.	24:28
	We are born alone and we die alone,	24:34
	and then the interim,	24:40
	had we but the wit to know it,	24:43
	and the grace to admit it,	24:45
	we live alone.	24:48
	Now do not for an instant think that there is no place	24:51
	for community in the Christian life.	24:55
	Indeed the Christian life is a life of community,	24:58
	with God and neighbor.	25:03
	And I for one, however much I may default	25:06
	in my obligation to be a neighbor to my fellows,	25:10
	never doubt that the kingdom is a community,	25:15
	neither divided nor circumscribed by the artificial lines	25:19
	which our persons and our prejudice have constructed.	25:25
	Even so, those who live within the Christian community	25:31
	or any community are still individuals,	25:37
	with hopes and fears, with joys and sorrows.	25:42
	The exquisite nature of which cannot finally be shared,	25:47
	even with their dearest loves.	25:52
	No one ever meant what I mean	25:56
	when I say, I love you.	26:00
	We tell our dear ones, and alas, it is true.	26:03
	But at the core of personality,	26:08
	there is a soul, a you,	26:11
	with destiny unlike that of any person who has ever lived	26:15
	or ever will live,	26:20
	you are alone.	26:22
	So when we see the lonely people in the Bible,	26:25
	we do well.	26:30
	If we look carefully at their loneliness	26:32
	to discover in the account of it, a word for our own.	26:36
	Now loneliness is not a state of more or less.	26:42
	We are all lonely,	26:47
	but among the mortals who people the stories of the Bible,	26:50
	none is more immediately recognizable	26:55
	as a lonely person than Jacob.	26:59
	His name however,	27:02
	suggests that his generation saw much	27:05
	and else in him besides his loneliness.	27:08
	The name itself means heel snatcher,	27:13
	for hardly born into this world,	27:18
	Jacob laid his hand upon his twin brother's heel.	27:20
	Or perhaps the name means the supplanter,	27:26
	a fitting name for one who cheated his brother,	27:31
	and his father, and his wife, and his father-in-law.	27:35
	He was a tricky one that Jacob,	27:42
	with much to remember and much to forget.	27:45
	When he appears and camped at Jabbok,	27:50
	he is grown prosperous with impressive family	27:53
	and a retinue of servants with flocks and herds.	27:57
	And he should be tranquil,	28:02
	whereas he is full of anxiety and fear.	28:04
	He has but recently sneaked away	28:09
	from his father-in-law Laban,	28:12
	taking with him property, to say nothing of daughters,	28:15
	property understandably regarded by Laban	28:19
	as his and not Jacobs.	28:23
	And Jacob has only just managed to make a truce	28:27
	with a pursuing father-in-law	28:30
	when he learns that his brother,	28:33
	his twin Esau is on his way to meet him.	28:36
	And that encounter is fraught with more danger	28:41
	than a meeting with Laban,	28:45
	for Esau was the one whom the supplanter supplanted.	28:48
	It was monstrous,	28:55
	but Jacob had deceived his blind and senile father,	28:57
	and robbed his twin brother Esau,	29:02
	already cheated of a birthright,	29:05
	of his expected blessing.	29:08
	Esau had sworn to kill Jacob	29:11
	just as soon as his father Isaac	29:15
	had been dead a decent length of time.	29:18
	Isaac as it happened was still alive,	29:22
	but Esau was an angry man and strong,	29:26
	he might not wait.	29:31
	Esau was coming to meet him.	29:35
	Esau, whom he had tricked,	29:37
	not only once, but twice.	29:39
	Jacob was terrified, little wonder.	29:43
	He sent handsome gifts to his brother to mollify him,	29:47
	and caused his wives and children to go before him	29:52
	and meet Esau before he did	29:56
	to engender pity in him.	29:59
	And then for the time being,	30:02
	Jacob, the rascal, stayed behind, alone.	30:05
	In the record of his loneliness and what came of it,	30:12
	there is wisdom perhaps even comfort for us.	30:17
	Jacob is a strange one	30:23
	to occupy an honored place in the tradition,	30:27
	yet here he is,	30:30
	for the formula has come down to us, that God,	30:33
	the God whom we seek, is the God of Abraham,	30:37
	and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.	30:42
	The God of Abraham?	30:47
	Yes, surely.	30:49
	There is always a God for the courageous pathfinder.	30:51
	The God of Isaac?	30:57
	Perhaps, Isaac seems harmless enough,	30:59
	but the God of Jacob, how so?	31:03
	The God of a rogue?	31:08
	Then look again at his loneliness.	31:11
	We may not consider Jacob's character inspiring,	31:15
	but there is an authenticity about him.	31:19
	We recognize Jacob because of people we have known,	31:23
	and because of what we have been,	31:28
	greed, ambition, duplicity,	31:32
	we understand such phenomena.	31:37
	I, and we understand loneliness too.	31:40
	We look at Jacob's plight,	31:44
	and we remember, when I was.	31:47
	Or we catch the breath with apprehension	31:52
	thinking, lest I be.	31:55
	His schemes have finally caught up with him,	31:59
	and he must face his identity and face it alone.	32:03
	Myth makers have covered Jacob	32:09
	with layers of morality and apology,	32:11
	but the essence remains, he is the heel snatcher.	32:15
	Yet the fact that strikes us	32:21
	is that this pitiable individual is alone.	32:24
	For most likely,	32:30
	it is no more pathetic to be lonely in guilt	32:32
	than to be lonely in the face of potential joy,	32:37
	because there is no one to share our happiness.	32:41
	The main point is not what brought him to loneliness,	32:46
	but that he is alone.	32:51
	Our grief is not that we are alone	32:55
	when triumph finally arrives,	32:57
	and there is no one to understand	33:00
	what the victory means to us.	33:03
	Not that we are alone when we are most in love,	33:06
	because our love does not understand.	33:11
	Not even that we are alone when some shattering tragedy	33:15
	adds the purple border of dignity to our robes,	33:20
	it is that we are always alone.	33:25
	Even in the tedious responsibilities of our day	33:32
	that do not really make much difference.	33:36
	You are alone trying to write an assignment,	33:40
	or to take an examination, or to plan a weekend,	33:45
	or communicate with a friend.	33:50
	We are alone in little as well as in large matters.	33:53
	We notice more consciously the significant turns	33:59
	in our personal histories,	34:03
	but it is ever the same,	34:05
	the telling circumstance is the loneliness,	34:08
	that we must be, and do,	34:12
	and decide alone.	34:16
	Now it was at Jabbok that the fugitive,	34:20
	lonely, anxious Jacob met,	34:24
	but whom shall I say.	34:29
	The lesson says, there wrestled a man with him	34:32
	until the breaking of the day.	34:37
	Who wrestled with Jacob?	34:40
	Some river demon of the night?	34:43
	Some primitive guardian of the stream	34:47
	who could not let a stranger pass?	34:50
	Hardly.	34:53
	Esau?	34:55
	And what if it were?	34:57
	He had tricked him twice, and he could do it again.	34:59
	No, this one was a stranger.	35:03
	With approaching dawn the wrestler cried out,	35:08
	let me go.	35:12
	And only then did Jacob dimly perceive who had touched him.	35:14
	"Let me go," cried the stranger,	35:20
	and Jacob still the bargainer replied,	35:23
	"I will not let you go until you bless me."	35:27
	Here is dramatized the inevitable struggle	35:32
	of a mortal with his own conscience,	35:36
	that is with his own consciousness.	35:40
	Outwardly prosperous, outwardly stable,	35:45
	Jacob was within vulnerable and terrified.	35:49
	He was lonely just as you and I are within ourselves,	35:54
	often not what outwardly we seem.	36:01
	But even of his loneliness,	36:05
	Jacob was determined to rest a blessing.	36:08
	Darkly shadowed by his guilt,	36:12
	haunted by memories of the past,	36:16
	which he had tried to expunge from his mind,	36:19
	agonized by the admission of who he was,	36:23
	Jacob with the outrageous quality that the faithful live by	36:28
	contended, there must be a meaning,	36:34
	or at least a blessing even in this.	36:39
	A word even for one so lonely as I am.	36:44
	Nevermind the world,	36:49
	he could still mask his cowardice and hypocrisy,	36:51
	but could he deny it to himself,	36:56
	to God,	37:00
	a blessing from this.	37:02
	The stranger touched his thigh and Jacob limped thereafter.	37:04
	Some later scribe has supplied this detail,	37:10
	a parable to remind us that one does not meet God	37:15
	and come away unmarked.	37:20
	But Jacob needed no reminder,	37:23
	instinctively he would have known	37:27
	that you cannot ever, ever be the same again.	37:30
	after you have looked into the face of God.	37:34
	No longer can you be haughty,	37:38
	no longer can you be arrogant, not ever again.	37:42
	Moreover, there is a direction of redemption for man	37:47
	lined out in Jacob's story,	37:51
	for Jacob was sensitive to the truth,	37:54
	that there is more to life than it's apparent dimension.	37:57
	Of what now comes your loneliness.	38:03
	That the success which you seek is beyond	38:08
	and always will the beyond your reach,	38:13
	the election to celebrity is not yours,	38:17
	or does it come from the certainty	38:22
	not yet announced to the world,	38:25
	but already known to you that death will come far sooner	38:27
	than you had at one time thought.	38:33
	Or are you lonely because nobody loves you?	38:37
	God loves me, said Jacob,	38:42
	there must be some meaning to the circumstance of my life.	38:46
	I see it not, but I will not forswear it.	38:51
	And I will wrestle and contend until I discover it,	38:56
	and if I do not, I will persist.	39:00
	I will demand a blessing from this curse.	39:05
	If it is there, it surely is there,	39:08
	if only I might have the eyes to see that this,	39:13
	even this life of mine	39:18
	is transparent to the everlasting mercy.	39:21
	Once before Jacob had had a vision of angels,	39:26
	angels going up and down a ladder,	39:31
	not so fortunate this time,	39:34
	but he remained unshakeable.	39:38
	I will not let you go.	39:41
	Is this just Jacob's story?	39:44
	Could it be yours or mine?	39:48
	But we have told you,	39:52
	the Bible is filled with stories of the lonely ones,	39:55
	which are the stories about you and me,	39:59
	and stories for you and me,	40:03
	and balm for our loneliness.	40:07
	Who are they, the lonely ones in this antique volume?	40:10
	Adam, alone in a garden of delights,	40:16
	with all the future before him,	40:21
	and only the choice as to whether he will be faithful	40:24
	to his destiny,	40:27
	but he must decide, must do.	40:29
	Is this your choice,	40:34
	in your youth with all life before you,	40:36
	or in your old age,	40:41
	with perhaps only an instant of time left to you,	40:44
	but then an instant is all that the soul requires.	40:49
	Yes, Adam is alone,	40:54
	and Elijah is alone,	40:57
	running away from an irate Jezebel,	41:00
	and whimpering in self-pity.	41:03
	And I only am left, and they seek my life to take it also.	41:07
	But are we not the weak ones?	41:13
	The cowardly ones who cry out,	41:16
	I cannot do it alone.	41:19
	I cannot bear it.	41:22
	It is too much, too much for me,	41:23
	and nobody knows, and nobody cares.	41:27
	And what of angel visited Mary, chosen to be mother of God,	41:32
	and astonished out of tranquility, troubled and asking,	41:38
	how can this be?	41:44
	It is no more than the why me Lord?	41:46
	why me?	41:51
	Of our own chaotic days.	41:53
	And Peter, weeping in lonely recognition of his betrayal,	41:56
	or say it softly, Judas going out to hang himself,	42:02
	or even God bless and pity you	42:08
	if this be too familiar,	42:12
	the figure of Jesus setting his face steadfastly	42:15
	to go up to Jerusalem,	42:19
	and beginning the steep ascent	42:22
	knowing full well that the dark shadow across his path	42:25
	is cast by the gold arms of the cross,	42:30
	reaching out to gather him into its wooden embrace.	42:34
	Who are the lonely ones in the stories of the Bible?	42:39
	They are all the lonely ones,	42:44
	for they are all alike,	42:48
	and they speak to us because we are lonely.	42:50
	Jacob touches us at the quick,	42:55
	because his loneliness is quite akin to ours.	42:58
	A loneliness that becomes the setting	43:03
	in which we must face the truth about ourselves,	43:06
	must look at what we are,	43:10
	if ever, ever we are to be able to stop running away	43:13
	in the futile effort to escape ourselves.	43:18
	Thinking of loneliness as the guarantee of victory	43:23
	reassures us,	43:28
	yet write this down,	43:30
	that the victory is forever barred to us	43:32
	if we do not raise our eyes to the light	43:37
	which lets us see the shape of our darkness.	43:41
	Conrad Kurtz fell victim to the very power	43:46
	he sought to conquer.	43:50
	And then the end, he could only gasp,	43:52
	oh, the horror, the horror.	43:55
	For what our victory turns upon	43:59
	is not so much saying,	44:03
	I will not let you go until you bless me,	44:05
	but rather on fate's prior assumption	44:10
	that there is surely a blessing in this dark mystery.	44:14
	Victory is never denying the agony.	44:19
	The toad beneath the harrow	44:24
	knows exactly where each tooth point goes.	44:27
	When the contest was over,	44:33
	all that Jacob had was a promise,	44:36
	a promise, and a limp.	44:41
	The stranger promised him a new name,	44:44
	that is another chance.	44:48
	When the stranger left him,	44:52
	Jacob went on his way, limping,	44:54
	and he had still to meet Esau.	44:58
	Who then was the Victor of the match?	45:04
	Jacob or God.	45:07
	We hear Jacob asking himself, who was the hero?	45:10
	The one whose heaven handling flung me,	45:17
	whose foot trod upon me, or me that fought him?	45:21
	Oh, which one?	45:27
	Is it each one that night,	45:29
	that year, of now done darkness,	45:33
	when I a wretch, lay wrestling with my God, my God.	45:37
	The promise is that God transforms, that is the point.	45:45
	Who are the saints?	45:51
	Not the proper symbols trapped in stain glass,	45:53
	or imprisoned in silver and gold.	45:58
	They were the ordinary human folk like you and me,	46:01
	Abraham lied,	46:07
	Noah was drunken,	46:09
	the Magdalene made the same mistake time and time again.	46:11
	John lost his temper.	46:16
	Paul was prejudiced.	46:18
	But they sought blessing and meaning in the scraps of life,	46:21
	vouched safe to them,	46:26
	and in the end they achieved.	46:28
	So with our lives,	46:33
	we play at paste till qualified for pearl,	46:36
	then drop the paste and deem ourself a fool.	46:41
	The new shapes though were similar,	46:47
	and our new hands learned gem tactics, practicing in sands.	46:50
	I too have a place, and so do you.	46:59
	And our lives are dear in the mind of God.	47:03
	Our task is but to discover the forms	47:07
	in which their trust reposes.	47:11
	Either all occurrences are in some degree	47:15
	a revelation of God,	47:19
	or else there is no revelation at all.	47:22
	Only if nothing is profane	47:27
	can anything be sacred.	47:30
	The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,	47:34
	and the God of Jacob.	47:39
	Yes, surely.	47:41
	The heart responds, for if he can be God to Jacob,	47:43
	he can be God to anyone,	47:49
	even to me.	47:52
	And so it came to pass,	47:56
	that Jacob crossed over the brook and went to meet Esau.	47:59
	And as he passed over Penuel,	48:05
	the sun rose upon him.	48:09
	And he halted upon his thigh.	48:13
	All mighty God	48:20
	support us as we limp about the business of our lives,	48:23
	and sustain us in the confidence that thy grace upholds.	48:29
	And that in this life,	48:36
	every moment of our days	48:39
	is equally distant from eternity.	48:42
	and that all are transparent to thy love,	48:46
	amen.	48:50
	(lively piano music)	48:55
	(lively piano music)	49:16
	("Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah")	49:37
	("Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah")	49:57
	("Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah")	50:23
	("Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah")	50:59
	("Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah")	51:36
	(lively piano music)	52:13
	(lively piano music)	52:34
	(cheerful liturgical music)	52:49
	(cheerful liturgical music)	53:26
	(cheerful liturgical music)	53:58
	(cheerful liturgical music)	54:17
	(gentle liturgical music)	54:44
	(gentle liturgical music)	55:02
	(gentle liturgical music)	55:25
	(lively piano music)	55:47
	(cheerful liturgical music)	56:12
	(cheerful liturgical music)	56:30
	(cheerful liturgical music)	56:52
	(cheerful liturgical music)	57:24
	(cheerful liturgical music)	57:52
	(cheerful liturgical music)	58:20
	(cheerful liturgical music)	58:53
	(cheerful liturgical music)	59:29
	(lively piano music)	59:56
	("Hallelujah, Hallelujah")	1:00:10
	("Hallelujah, Hallelujah")	1:00:49
-	Dear God, all that we have, we have of thee,	1:01:08
	creator and preserver of mankind,	1:01:12
	accept these gifts which we now bring before thee,	1:01:15
	and help us to make the whole of life an offering.	1:01:18
	We seal this our worship	1:01:22
	in a renewed consecration of ourselves	1:01:24
	and our coming days to thy service,	1:01:26
	through Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.	1:01:29
	(lively piano music)	1:01:34
	(lively liturgical music)	1:02:16
	(lively liturgical music)	1:02:42
	(lively liturgical music)	1:03:16
	(lively liturgical music)	1:03:50
	(lively liturgical music)	1:04:23
	(lively liturgical music)	1:05:01
	(lively liturgical music)	1:05:35
	Please be seated.	1:06:10
	Now go forth into the world in peace.	1:06:18
	Be of good courage.	1:06:21
	Hold fast that which is good.	1:06:23
	Render to no man evil for evil.	1:06:25
	Strengthen the faint hearted,	1:06:28
	support the weak.	1:06:30
	Help the afflicted,	1:06:32
	honor all men.	1:06:33
	Love and serve the Lord,	1:06:35
	rejoicing in the power of the Holy Ghost,	1:06:37
	and the blessing of God almighty,	1:06:40
	the father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit	1:06:42
	be upon you and remain with you forever.	1:06:45
	Amen.	1:06:48
	(gentle liturgical music)	1:06:59
	(gentle liturgical music)	1:07:30
	(gentle liturgical music)	1:08:11
	(bell ringing)	1:08:34
	(lively piano music)	1:08:46

Item Info

Title:

Stuart C. Henry - "Loneliness" (February 17, 1974)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4hm56m1v

Date:

February 17, 1974

Speaker:

Henry, Stuart C.

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 RR-0692
ref6584_1ss
uachapelsermaud
duke:628271
dcrau002670
ark:/87924/r4hm56m1v
564a863f-f0f4-4188-bfcc-b9bc5269aa6a

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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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.

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Stuart C. Henry - "Loneliness" (February 17, 1974)

Transcript

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Duke University Archives

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