William H. Willimon - "You Call This a Church?" (April 6, 1997)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | In the church's year, this is traditionally known | 0:10 |
as Low Sunday, the Sunday after Easter. | 0:13 | |
The choir doesn't believe that. | 0:19 | |
(laughing) | 0:23 | |
Well, after the women discovered the empty tomb | 0:25 | |
in the 20th chapter of John, this is the next, | 0:30 | |
the very next story, the first Easter story | 0:33 | |
which is told as today's gospel. | 0:37 | |
When it was evening of that day, | 0:41 | |
Easter, first day of the week, | 0:44 | |
the doors of the house where the disciples met | 0:47 | |
were locked for fear of the Jews. | 0:49 | |
Jesus came and stood among them and said, | 0:51 | |
"Peace be with you." | 0:55 | |
After He said this, He showed them His hands and His side. | 0:58 | |
Then His disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. | 1:02 | |
Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. | 1:07 | |
"As the Father has sent me, so I send you." | 1:10 | |
When He had said this, He breathed on them and said to them, | 1:14 | |
"Receive the Holy Spirit | 1:18 | |
"and if you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven. | 1:20 | |
"If you retain the sins of any, they are retained." | 1:24 | |
But Thomas, who was called a twin, | 1:29 | |
one of the 12, was not with them when Jesus came | 1:31 | |
so the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." | 1:34 | |
But Thomas said, "Unless I see the mark of the nails | 1:38 | |
"in His hands and put my finger in the mark of the nails | 1:41 | |
"and my hand in His side, I will not believe." | 1:44 | |
A week later, the disciples were again in the house | 1:49 | |
and Thomas was with them. | 1:54 | |
Although the doors were shut, Jesus came | 1:56 | |
and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." | 1:59 | |
Then He said to Thomas, | 2:03 | |
"Put your finger here and see my hands. | 2:05 | |
"Reach out your hand and put it in my side. | 2:08 | |
"Do not doubt, but believe." | 2:11 | |
Thomas answered, "My Lord and my God." | 2:14 | |
Jesus said, "If you believe because you have seen me, | 2:21 | |
"blessed are those who have not seen | 2:25 | |
"and yet come to believe." | 2:27 | |
Now Jesus did many other signs | 2:30 | |
in the presence of the disciples | 2:32 | |
which are not written in this book, | 2:34 | |
but these are written so that you might come to believe | 2:37 | |
that Jesus is the Messiah, the son of God, | 2:41 | |
and that through believing, you may have life in His name. | 2:45 | |
This is the word of the Lord. | 2:51 | |
In my ministry, I have been privileged | 3:01 | |
to visit and to preach at scores of different churches | 3:03 | |
and it's quite a privilege | 3:10 | |
to see the rich breadth and diversity of the church. | 3:14 | |
In one month last year, | 3:19 | |
I found myself preaching in a college chapel, | 3:22 | |
where about 100 students gathered with book bags | 3:26 | |
and after the service, they went out, | 3:30 | |
back to the library, back to doing what they were doing. | 3:33 | |
The next Sunday, I was in a great city cathedral | 3:36 | |
where a couple of thousand gathered. | 3:39 | |
And then the Sunday after that, | 3:41 | |
in a little country church in a pine grove in Georgia | 3:43 | |
where just 30 or so folk gathered to hear the word. | 3:48 | |
I noticed that there's not a lot in common between churches. | 3:55 | |
Churches look vastly different | 4:03 | |
and gather under vastly different circumstances | 4:07 | |
and some of these churches just seem to have everything. | 4:12 | |
There's a church in Houston that has five bowling alleys. | 4:19 | |
Some churches, it's just amazing what they have. | 4:26 | |
The same church has an Olympic-size swimming pool, | 4:29 | |
a helicopter landing pad. | 4:33 | |
And it's Texas, but still, it's impressive. | 4:37 | |
(laughing) | 4:41 | |
Some churches seem to have everything. | 4:44 | |
A lot of people think that about this church. | 4:47 | |
Our building, this neo-Gothic marble, | 4:51 | |
four organs, a huge choir, adorable preaching. | 4:55 | |
(laughing) | 5:02 | |
Now what else would you want to have church, | 5:05 | |
church as it ought to be. | 5:09 | |
Indeed, last Sunday on Easter, there was a couple | 5:11 | |
that informed me at the door | 5:14 | |
they had driven over three hours | 5:16 | |
to be with us for the service, and when I asked them why, | 5:19 | |
they said to me, "Because you people here do chapel, | 5:22 | |
"you know how to do it right." | 5:25 | |
This is church, this is church as it's supposed to be. | 5:28 | |
But all that is in sharp contrast to today's gospel | 5:35 | |
'cause there you got a picture of a church | 5:40 | |
that appears to have nothing. | 5:46 | |
They don't even have one organ, not even an upright piano. | 5:49 | |
They don't have a choir. | 5:54 | |
There's no preacher. | 5:57 | |
In fact, in one sense, here in the 20th chapter | 5:59 | |
of John's gospel is a glimpse | 6:02 | |
of the church as bad as it can get. | 6:05 | |
Here is the church of Jesus | 6:10 | |
gathered after His resurrection, and look at it. | 6:13 | |
Look at First Church Jerusalem. | 6:19 | |
There, hunkered down behind closed, locked doors, fearful, | 6:22 | |
for many chapters of the gospel of John, | 6:30 | |
Jesus has been preparing His disciples for His departure. | 6:33 | |
He's told them, "You're to be the branches of my vine. | 6:37 | |
"You're to be the ones that are courageous | 6:41 | |
"and faithful and believing." | 6:44 | |
And here, at the end of the story, | 6:49 | |
when it comes time for the disciples, | 6:51 | |
the church to show what it's made of, look at it. | 6:54 | |
Fearful. | 7:00 | |
Somebody wasn't paying attention through all those chapters | 7:03 | |
of the gospel of John, cowering like frightened rabbits | 7:06 | |
behind their bolted-shut, locked doors. | 7:11 | |
They were supposed to be the ones walking confidently | 7:18 | |
out into the future, full of the Holy Spirit, | 7:21 | |
announcing the Easter triumph of God, | 7:25 | |
but just look at them, hunkered down there, cowering, | 7:27 | |
hoping nobody in town will hear that they're there. | 7:29 | |
Here is the church at its worst, | 7:34 | |
scared, disheartened, defensive. | 7:39 | |
Tom Long, I asked, what kind of advertisement | 7:47 | |
would this church put in the paper | 7:51 | |
on Sunday morning to attract people? | 7:54 | |
Couldn't say as some churches say, | 7:59 | |
friendliest church in town, no. | 8:00 | |
Locked doors are not a sign of warm hospitality. | 8:04 | |
A church with a warm heart, bold mission? | 8:09 | |
Hardly. | 8:13 | |
This is the church of the sweaty palms and the shaky knees | 8:15 | |
and the firmly-bolted front door. | 8:19 | |
And how could that be called a church? | 8:25 | |
Not only has it got no sanctuary and no pulpit | 8:30 | |
and no choir, it's got no plan, | 8:34 | |
it's got no mission, no conviction, nothing. | 8:38 | |
While back, a preacher asked Robert Schuller | 8:42 | |
of Crystal Cathedral, "What do you think | 8:45 | |
"is the most essential thing for a church to have | 8:48 | |
"in order to grow?" | 8:51 | |
And Dr. Schuller answered, | 8:53 | |
"A large and accessible parking lot." | 8:55 | |
(laughing) | 9:00 | |
Now, I know that those of you who trooped up | 9:01 | |
through the woods this Sunday would say | 9:03 | |
there's a lot to be said for a good, accessible parking lot. | 9:05 | |
But you admit surely, surely for the church | 9:10 | |
it ought to be more than that. | 9:17 | |
Not long ago on a questionnaire, | 9:20 | |
we asked churches of my denomination, | 9:23 | |
we asked laity, what do you look for in a church? | 9:26 | |
Number one thing they look for is friendliness. | 9:32 | |
I want a church that's friendly. | 9:37 | |
Second thing, we want bold, we want interesting preaching. | 9:43 | |
And I noticed on the questionnaire, | 9:49 | |
nobody put down, we want locked doors, | 9:51 | |
we want members that are frightened. | 9:54 | |
Yes, it's Low Sunday and the gospel is appropriately | 10:01 | |
the church at its low ebb, it's the first church. | 10:06 | |
Here is a church, the first church, | 10:13 | |
the great, great grand-daddy of us all churches. | 10:18 | |
Here's a church that's got nothing. | 10:22 | |
It's got nothing except that when it gathered, | 10:27 | |
the risen Christ pushed through that locked door, | 10:36 | |
threw back the bolt, and stood among them. | 10:41 | |
And maybe that's as close to church as you ever get. | 10:51 | |
Even the church in Houston | 11:00 | |
with a dozen bowling alleys and the pool, | 11:01 | |
or even this church with its big choir | 11:05 | |
and its gorgeous windows, its preacher, | 11:11 | |
left to our own devices, we're nothing. | 11:16 | |
We're nothing more than a huddle of confused and timid | 11:23 | |
and half-understanding, bewildered, cowering failures | 11:29 | |
who all got F's in the course following Jesus 101. | 11:35 | |
We ministers and musicians | 11:43 | |
I think have learned that here at Duke Chapel. | 11:45 | |
At Duke Chapel, we're supposed to set a kind of standard | 11:51 | |
in liturgical worship and in music | 11:54 | |
and that means that every afternoon at 1:30, | 11:58 | |
we have the meeting of the ministers and the musicians | 12:02 | |
and believe it or not, we carefully evaluate the service | 12:06 | |
that has gone before, we put down the pluses | 12:09 | |
and we put down the minuses, | 12:13 | |
and then we get to planning future services. | 12:15 | |
And believe it or not, we coordinate every hymn, | 12:18 | |
we look at the prayers, we look at the scripture | 12:22 | |
for the day, and we write all that down | 12:24 | |
and we proofread the bulletin for the next week. | 12:30 | |
And Dr. Wynkoop was a math major | 12:34 | |
so he reads it very closely and all | 12:37 | |
and we agonize over the spacing | 12:40 | |
between the letters and everything. | 12:42 | |
(laughing) | 12:44 | |
But we have noted that despite all that meeting | 12:47 | |
and all that effort, I don't care how much evaluation | 12:50 | |
and dedication we give it, | 12:53 | |
we learn that worship, real worship is not of our creation. | 12:57 | |
It's a gift. | 13:07 | |
It's a gift. | 13:10 | |
And sometimes we plan and we work | 13:12 | |
and it just doesn't happen. | 13:15 | |
In fact, sometimes I think | 13:20 | |
that maybe all of our laborious planning | 13:21 | |
and selecting and evaluating | 13:24 | |
is just another form of those disciples' locked doors | 13:26 | |
'cause we plan the service and we proofread the bulletin | 13:32 | |
and we make sure everything is tied down and planned | 13:35 | |
and just right, and maybe it's our subconscious attempt | 13:37 | |
to keep everything fixed and predictable | 13:41 | |
and under our control and to make sure | 13:44 | |
we know where we're gonna be by noon, | 13:46 | |
but that can be deadly. | 13:49 | |
But sometimes, by the grace of God, | 13:54 | |
by the breath of the Holy Spirit, | 13:59 | |
somehow the risen Christ slips through | 14:04 | |
those big oak doors at the back. | 14:07 | |
Our plotting through the bulletin, | 14:11 | |
our respectable reverence, and sometimes there's worship | 14:13 | |
and it's not of our creation, it's a gift. | 14:19 | |
And sometimes you just want to take off your shoes | 14:27 | |
like Moses before the burning bush. | 14:30 | |
Sometimes you just want to shout out with Jacob. | 14:32 | |
Surely the Lord is in this place | 14:37 | |
and that's when we get to be church. | 14:43 | |
Number of years ago, the late Bob Wilson and I, | 14:47 | |
we thought of writing a book | 14:51 | |
entitled "The Successful Church" | 14:53 | |
and our thesis was there's a lot of churches out there | 14:56 | |
that when you first look at them, | 15:00 | |
they look really successful. | 15:02 | |
Got a good crowd on Sunday morning, | 15:03 | |
membership is growing moderately, | 15:05 | |
they've got a prosperous, a full, thriving program, | 15:07 | |
well-maintained buildings, and yet, | 15:11 | |
at heart, they are cold and dead. | 15:15 | |
Let's keep everybody busy. | 15:20 | |
Let's keep going to meetings | 15:23 | |
and ceramics classes and yoga classes | 15:25 | |
and 12-step programs for every malady. | 15:29 | |
And maybe nobody'll ever notice | 15:31 | |
that there's no room for God. | 15:33 | |
So Stanley Hauerwas and I, in our book "Resident Aliens," | 15:38 | |
said that there's a good deal of atheism | 15:41 | |
in much of our church life. | 15:48 | |
There's a lot of churches that just are atheistic. | 15:52 | |
They just don't need God to make them work. | 15:55 | |
Things keep cranking along and their ceramics classes | 15:59 | |
for older adults and yoga classes for busy homemakers | 16:02 | |
and trips to Disney World for the youth, | 16:05 | |
it's so that you just think | 16:08 | |
we could just get along fine without God. | 16:10 | |
They're so successful, it makes them | 16:17 | |
kind of moral uplift society for the youth | 16:18 | |
or a place for retirees to hang out during the week. | 16:23 | |
It just never got around to being church. | 16:28 | |
So if you want to see us stripped of our traffics, | 16:34 | |
our pretenses peeled away, then you need to look here | 16:39 | |
in the 20th chapter of John. | 16:45 | |
A pitiful huddle of timid souls, | 16:48 | |
hugging onto one another behind locked doors | 16:52 | |
without the presence, the presence which transforms | 16:59 | |
our human gatherings into the church of God. | 17:04 | |
Well, this, this is about all we are. | 17:10 | |
But the good news, the good news is that | 17:16 | |
it was to that church, this church, | 17:21 | |
here in the 20th chapter of John, | 17:25 | |
church which is hardly church that the risen Christ | 17:28 | |
came saying "Peace be with you." | 17:32 | |
Because He had been with these people before, | 17:37 | |
He says it a second time, "Peace be with you." | 17:39 | |
Into this busy, buzzing void, there was a voice. | 17:44 | |
There was a presence and there was a peace | 17:53 | |
not of our advising. | 17:57 | |
You might have thought that here was a church | 18:02 | |
that sometimes happens in churches of my denomination | 18:06 | |
when they don't do what they're supposed to do | 18:12 | |
and they don't pay their apportionments and all, | 18:13 | |
sometimes we send out a district superintendent down there | 18:16 | |
to lean on them and be the heavy and he'll say, | 18:19 | |
"You call this a church? | 18:22 | |
"Shame on you. | 18:23 | |
"This isn't a church." | 18:24 | |
But no, the risen Christ comes among them | 18:28 | |
and says, "Peace be with you. | 18:31 | |
"Peace be with you." | 18:36 | |
And then He says, "I'm sending you into the world." | 18:41 | |
And then He breathes on them | 18:46 | |
and He gives them the same Holy Spirit that is His | 18:49 | |
and He bestows upon them the awesome power to forgive sins. | 18:54 | |
In other words, John says, | 19:03 | |
he gives that little huddle group of disciples | 19:06 | |
everything He's got. | 19:09 | |
Here is church as church as it ever gets. | 19:14 | |
John Calvin said, "Church is wherever | 19:21 | |
"the word is rightly preached | 19:24 | |
"and the sacraments are duly administered." | 19:26 | |
Well, yes and no, | 19:30 | |
because even in our right preaching | 19:35 | |
and due administration, even that can't make church. | 19:39 | |
Church is a gift of God, a God who refuses to leave us be. | 19:46 | |
He comes to us. | 19:54 | |
It's His presence that makes His church. | 19:55 | |
To the church that had absolutely nothing, | 20:00 | |
the risen Christ is everything. | 20:05 | |
Spirit, mission, forgiveness. | 20:08 | |
We, you, we are the church, | 20:14 | |
not because we got the building built and paid for, | 20:18 | |
not because the choir or the organ, | 20:22 | |
the preaching, various activities, | 20:24 | |
we're church because even to us, | 20:27 | |
Christ has come and given His gifts | 20:29 | |
of spirit, mission, forgiveness, | 20:33 | |
commissioning us to go into the whole world | 20:37 | |
and do what He did, and that's why we can call it church. | 20:40 | |
My first church was in rural Georgia. | 20:51 | |
I was fresh out of seminary and I wanted to be | 20:55 | |
a good pastor in my first parish. | 20:58 | |
I was in graduate school at the time, | 21:03 | |
commuting out to the Hinterland from Atlanta | 21:05 | |
on the weekends, and most Sunday mornings at dawn, | 21:08 | |
it was a tough trip out there from Atlanta. | 21:14 | |
I used to say a little prayer | 21:20 | |
when I would go out to that church on Sundays, | 21:21 | |
and my prayer was this. | 21:25 | |
Lord, I know it's October, | 21:28 | |
but a blizzard would be good right now. | 21:30 | |
(laughing) | 21:35 | |
You know, one that would close the interstate. | 21:36 | |
I used to say, that little church, | 21:40 | |
it only takes about 30 minutes to get out there, | 21:42 | |
but you travel 30 centuries to get there. | 21:44 | |
And the first day I visited one of those churches, | 21:51 | |
fresh out of seminary, ready to serve that church, | 21:56 | |
first day I went out there, I got out to the church | 21:58 | |
and there was this big chain and padlock on the front door. | 22:01 | |
When the lay leader showed up, I said, | 22:04 | |
"What is the padlock doing on the front door?" | 22:06 | |
He said, "The sheriff put that on the front door." | 22:07 | |
"The sheriff, for what?" | 22:10 | |
"Well, a couple months ago we had a meeting | 22:12 | |
"and things kind of got out of hand. | 22:14 | |
"People got mad, started ripping up carpet, | 22:16 | |
"dragging out pews they'd given in memory of their mothers, | 22:18 | |
"and we had the sheriff out here | 22:22 | |
"and he said he was just gonna put a padlock on it | 22:24 | |
"til the new preacher came and settled things down." | 22:25 | |
(laughing) | 22:28 | |
And that rather tempified my time at that church. | 22:33 | |
(laughing) | 22:37 | |
I spent a year out there, lasted a lifetime | 22:40 | |
and I tried everything. | 22:44 | |
I worked, I planned, I taught, I pled, | 22:45 | |
but the response was always disappointing. | 22:49 | |
The arguments, the pettiness, | 22:55 | |
the fight after the administrative board meeting | 22:57 | |
one night in the parking lot. | 22:59 | |
It was tough. | 23:01 | |
(laughing) | 23:03 | |
And I think my benediction on them the last day | 23:06 | |
was something like, "You call this a church." | 23:10 | |
I muttered that as my tires kicked up gravel | 23:15 | |
in the parking lot on my last Sunday. | 23:18 | |
"You call this church." | 23:20 | |
Just a couple of years later, | 23:26 | |
I was down visiting at Emory and I ran into this young man | 23:28 | |
who told me he was now serving that church | 23:33 | |
and my heart went out to him, | 23:39 | |
such a dear young man and only 24. | 23:41 | |
And he said, "They still remember you out at that church." | 23:44 | |
(laughing) | 23:48 | |
And I said, "Yeah, I guess I'll never forget them either." | 23:51 | |
"Remarkable bunch of people," he said. | 23:58 | |
"Remarkable?" I said. | 24:03 | |
"Yeah, you know, it's my first church | 24:07 | |
"and sometimes they're just amazing." | 24:09 | |
You know, that little church is now supporting | 24:13 | |
about 20 families in that little pitiful community | 24:15 | |
around that church. | 24:22 | |
By the way, you'll be glad to know | 24:24 | |
the free daycare center is going great | 24:25 | |
and you know, you just don't find | 24:28 | |
that many interracial congregations in Georgia. | 24:29 | |
I could hardly believe what he was telling me. | 24:35 | |
What happened? | 24:37 | |
"I don't know," he said, | 24:42 | |
"but one Sunday last fall, it was just like | 24:43 | |
"things kind of came together. | 24:47 | |
"Wasn't anything in particular, | 24:50 | |
"it was just when the service was over, | 24:51 | |
"we knew that Jesus loved us | 24:55 | |
"and we knew that He had plans for us." | 25:00 | |
I tell you what I think happened. | 25:09 | |
I think that church got intruded upon. | 25:12 | |
I think someone greater than I | 25:17 | |
knocked the lock off that door and kicked it open | 25:19 | |
and offered them peace and the Holy Spirit | 25:23 | |
and mission and forgiveness. | 25:28 | |
And now, nobody laughs when you call them church. | 25:33 | |
Church, it isn't my hard work or your earnest effort | 25:43 | |
and it isn't long-range planning or heavy-duty giving. | 25:49 | |
Church, it's a gift, it's a visitation, | 25:51 | |
it's an intrusion of the living Christ | 25:58 | |
standing among us, breathing upon us. | 26:04 |