Sunday Morning Worship Service - 2/16/20 - Rev. Dr. Thomas Long

29:00 It is wonderful to be back at Duke Chapel. I was beginning to think that I was not going to be able to get back. Over the last few years, I've been scheduled several times to preach here on Sunday, but it was always one of those February weekends when the snowflakes flew, but the airlines didn't, and I wasn't able to get here. I began to fret a little bit that they were inviting me in February, confident that the weather would wipe me off the schedule. But the weather has held this weekend, and the greetings and hospitality have been very warm indeed, and it's always a joy to be in worship with you here. Will you join me in prayer? O God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our strength and our redeemer.

30:04 In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. On a warm April night in Memphis, Tennessee, nearly 52 years ago now, Dr. Martin Luther King, even though he did not know it at the time, gave what was his last speech. He was standing in the pulpit of Mason's Temple Church, his congregation, sanitation workers, rights workers and others, and Dr. King stood there and gave what amounts to a farewell address. The next day, his life would be taken from him. As he got to the end of that sermon-like speech, it was almost as if he had a premonition about what was to happen because he said, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place, but I'm not worried about that now.

31:06 I just want to do God's will. God has allowed me to go to the top of the mountain, and I have looked over and I have seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but we as a people will get to the promised land. Tonight I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man, for mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. Now, some in that congregation that night surely recognized that Dr. King's farewell address was inspired by another farewell address. We just heard it this morning when Noah so beautifully read the passage from Deuteronomy. It's Moses' farewell address. Moses too would go to the top of the mountain, and Moses too would see the promised land. And what happens in this farewell address is that Moses has led the people of Israel out of Egypt, out of the house of bondage, out of slavery by the power of God. They've crossed the Red Sea. They have wandered 40 years in the desert, and at last they have come to the border. They are standing on the border of the promised land, about to go into the land flowing with milk and honey, a land of freedom and a land of hope. Moses is old and near death. He knows he will not be able to go with them, so he stands up and he gives them his farewell address.

32:44 He chooses his words carefully. As you go into this new land of promise, he said, behold, I set before you this day life and death, and you must choose. I set before you life and death. And what is life? Life is to do God's will. Life is to love the Lord your God so deeply that you form yourselves by His will and life. That's what life is that is really life. Choose life that you and your children may live. But there's an interesting little wrinkle here. the difference between what this speech appears to be and what it actually is. Let me get at that this way.

33:37 This is President's Weekend, and if you have seen the 2012 movie, Lincoln, you know that it is the inspiring story of how our 16th President of the United States, states, Abraham Lincoln, right at the end of the Civil War, managed to push through a resistant Congress the 13th Amendment to the Constitution and then on to the states for ratification. The 13th Amendment to the Constitution was the one that abolished the practice of slavery, our nation's original sin. And in that movie, we are allowed to hear Lincoln and the other revered leaders of our nation speak in passionate and persuasive ways about bipartisanship, racial equality, peace talks.

34:37 But here's the thing, no one in 1865 actually talked that way. Those phrases, bipartisanship, racial equality, and peace talks are phrases from a later time. They're from our day, not the 19th century. They have been read anachronistically into the script so that we might hear our most revered national leaders speaking to the 21st century and speaking to us about bipartisanship In a time when we don't have any and desperately need it. Speaking of the vision of racial equality, in a time when we are realizing the tragedy every day of how deeply racial injustice is woven into the fabric of our society. Speaking of peace talks, in a time when just last week two young American soldiers were killed, six others were wounded in a firefight in Afghanistan, a war that's been going on so long we hardly even remember that we were in it.

35:51 What appears to be Lincoln and others speaking to the nation in a time when the wounds of the Civil War are about to be healed and we are about to get rid of the scourge of slavery is actually Lincoln speaking to a time when we have broken apart. And we have chosen the ways of death, and our society is bitterly divided and fearful, and we look into a future and do not know where we are going. The same is true of Moses' farewell address. It looks like it is addressed to the nation of Israel at a high watermark. They are standing at the border, about to go into the land of promise and milk and honey, and they are given the opportunity to choose life and not death. But actually, scholars tell us that this passage was composed several hundred years later.

36:51 They've already gone into the land, and they did not choose life. They chose death. And the society has collapsed, and they have been taken into captivity in exile. As Ronald Clement, the Old Testament scholar, says, a speech that looks like it is addressed to the nation at its highest moment of promise is actually addressed at its deepest moment of shame when it has been driven out of the land. The reason for this, I think, is that when we have chosen death, when things have come apart, when we are a people in fear and bitterness and despair, we are not abandoned by God. We are taken in our religious imagination back to the border.

37:50 And there we hear Moses saying to us, let's try this again. I set before you this day life and death. Life is to do God's will, to love God so deeply we are formed by God's life. That's life. Choose life that you and your children may live. This is a passage not just of the first chance, but of the second chance and the third chance. and the fourth chance, as God's grace takes us back to the border and once again in our shame offers us life. This is a passage for a married couple who after going through a terrible, stressful time in their marriage have come back to the altar to renew their vows, to once again make the promises to each other that they have not been able to keep.

38:55 to love and to cherish. This is a passage for those who struggle with addiction, who've been through rehab once and twice and maybe a third time, but they're not abandoned by God who brings them back to the border and places before them the choice of life and death. This is a passage for the mother that I read about recently who has two sons in the Marines, and on one terrible day she had to bid farewell to both of them as they went off to the Gulf War. And as she was saying farewell, she said what mothers always say on moments like that. She said, don't forget how much I love you. Don't forget how much we all love you. Don't forget how much we'll miss you. Don't forget how much we'll pray for you. Don't forget to stay safe. Don't forget to text and email and to call us. And then as they went out the door wearing their camos and carrying their equipment, she said as they left, and one more thing, remember your baptism.

40:06 Don't forget even in the brokenness of war that you belong to God. You're God's person, and you have the opportunity to choose life. I just retired a few years ago from Emory University. The way that we do commencement there is that if the weather permits, we do it out on the quad, that great stretch of grass between the main buildings, and they set up thousands of folding chairs. There are some folding chairs for the college graduates and folding chairs for the business school, the law school, the medical school, the divinity school, thousands of chairs around them and behind them, chairs for the parents and the families. In front they have a speaker's rostrum, and on either side there are bleachers, and that's where the faculty sit, which means the faculty actually are facing the students during commencement.

41:07 and we get to see what they do while these sacred ceremonies are going on. And they are not always reverent. For example, one year, we gave an honorary degree to a Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright, and as he was giving his acceptance speech, they were ignoring him and texting each other and waves of laughter rippling back and forth. We gave an honorary degree to an internationally famous mathematician, And when she gave her speech, they were tossing their caps and tassels joyfully and playfully into the air. The only time they became silent was when a man who was probably the least educated man on the platform received an honorary degree. His name was Hugh Thompson.

41:59 He was raised in Stone Mountain, Georgia, a family of modest means. college was out of the question, so he entered the military. In 1968, he was flying patrol in his helicopter in Vietnam and happened to fly over the little village of My Lai. He looked down and saw a terrible catastrophe. Charlie Company had turned its guns and was massacring the residents of the village, old Old men, old women, mothers, children, babies, throwing their bodies into a ditch. Most helicopter pilots would have said, war is hell, and flown on. But Hugh Thompson set his helicopter down between Charlie Company and the villagers. He told his tail gunner, turn your gun toward our own troops.

42:56 He was almost court-martialed for that. It was years before his bravery was awarded with a medal. He got out of the helicopter and confronted Lieutenant William Calley. He then went to the ditch to see if there was anybody left alive among the bodies. He rescued a five-year-old boy. He stood on the platform that day at Emory and he said to the students, I don't have any fancy words. I will just tell you what my parents taught me when I was a boy. They're the words of Jesus. do unto others as you would have them do unto you." And we were all still because He reminded us that the most important decisions in life are not whether to go to law school or become an investment banker, but down deep, the challenge of Moses, I set before you this day life and death.

43:55 choose life that your children and you may live." And we were stunned by the bravery of a man who had chosen life. Three years ago, I was with a group of ministers who literally were on the border. We were down in El Paso, Juarez, and we were exploring what churches and other ministry units have done to serve those who are caught up in the refugee and immigration crisis. On the wall of one of the refugee centers, there was a beautiful painting done by a 12-year-old girl. Her story was this. She was orphaned in her homeland of Guatemala. Her parents were both killed in the violence rippling through that land. And as an orphan, she got caught up with a number of frightened refugees who were being taken north into hope that they would be received as refugees in the United States.

45:02 They were being taken by a mercenary, though, a coyote who was doing it for money. And one night when they were sleeping in the desert on their journey to the border, the little girl happened to be awake and overheard the coyote and his buddies talking about their plans for her. When they crossed the border, the coyote said, we'll sell her into prostitution. We'll sell her into sexual slavery. It'll be some extra money for us. Terror struck her soul, and when everybody was asleep, she ran away from the encampment, and she ran as fast and as far as she could. She had no food. She had no water. She just ran until finally she had run out of energy. And so she knelt on the sand of the desert and she prayed her final prayers.

45:59 And then she lay down on the desert floor to sleep and to die. What she did not know is that somehow she had made it across the border into Arizona. The night patrol found her and rescued her. she was taken to a refugee agency which found a relative in the Midwest who would sponsor her and a family there who would be a foster family for her. Before she left, she painted the picture. It's a picture of herself lying down and sleeping on the desert floor at the foot of a cactus. above the sky is filled with stars and there is a brilliantly beautiful bright moon. And she told her friends, that moon represents the love of God which watched over me and protected me and saved me.

47:00 Now if she had come into the country 18 months later, she probably would not be with a family in the Midwest. She probably would have been placed in a cage-like cell designed for children as the government tried to figure out how to deport her back to Guatemala, where she would face terror and possibly death. Now look, we all have our opinions about this, and there are many worthy debates to be had about immigration and what is the wise thing to do.

47:39 But as people of faith, there is a challenge before us that is deeper than policy and our partisan politics. It's the one that Moses put before us. I put before you this day life and death. What is life? Life is to do God's will, to love God so fully that you're formed by God's life. And God said, you shall love the alien as much as you love yourself. For remember, you once were aliens in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.

48:28 In so many times and moments of our life, we are brought back to the border. And there we stand. We've chosen death so many times. We stand there in shame and failure. And the God of grace lets us choose again. I set before you life and death. Choose life. At the end of his wonderful novel, Saul Bellows, Mr. Samler's Planet, Mr. Samler has just lost his dear friend of many years, Elia Gruner. Elia Gruner was a good Jew who did the best he could in his life to follow Moses' command and to choose life. And as Mr. Samler is standing at Elia Gruner's coffin, he prays, and this is what he prays. Remember, God, the soul of Elner Gruner, who as willingly as possible and as well as he was able, and even in death, was eager to do what was required of him.

49:32 At best, this man was much kinder than at my very best I have ever been or could be. He was aware that he must meet, and he did meet through all of the confusion and clowning of this life through which we are speeding. he met the terms of his contract. The terms which in his inmost heart each one of us knows as I know mine as all of us know for that is the truth of it. We know God.