William H. Willimon - "Church, Interrupted" (January 30, 2000)
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| - | I know a Methodist preacher, | 0:12 |
| who on his first Sunday | 0:14 | |
| in a church | 0:17 | |
| in a small southern town, | 0:18 | |
| he moved through the service | 0:22 | |
| and he had been told the custom | 0:23 | |
| of this church was to | 0:25 | |
| have an altar call at the conclusion | 0:27 | |
| of the service. | 0:31 | |
| So, he ended his sermon and he said, | 0:32 | |
| "Now, if there are any who would like | 0:34 | |
| "to unite with this church by profession | 0:35 | |
| "of faith, if any would like to kneel | 0:37 | |
| "at the altar rail for prayer, | 0:40 | |
| "please feel free to come forward | 0:43 | |
| "during the singing of the last hymn." | 0:45 | |
| They began the last hymn. | 0:49 | |
| With that, a young man, toward the rear | 0:51 | |
| of the congregation, shrieked out | 0:53 | |
| and ran down the center aisle | 0:56 | |
| and he lept over the altar rail | 0:59 | |
| and threw his whole body on the altar. | 1:01 | |
| And he began screaming and beating | 1:04 | |
| upon the altar, and kicking and | 1:06 | |
| the young minister stood there, just horrified. | 1:09 | |
| And with that, two of the older ushers | 1:12 | |
| got up and loped over and helped the young man | 1:15 | |
| off the altar, helped him out a side door. | 1:17 | |
| This had evidently happened before. | 1:21 | |
| But it so unnerved the pastor | 1:25 | |
| he could barely make it through the rest of the service. | 1:27 | |
| I don't think he ever recovered from that, it was... | 1:33 | |
| He wasn't helped when some of his fellow | 1:36 | |
| Methodist ministers, hearing about it, | 1:38 | |
| said things like, "Well, when you give an altar call, | 1:40 | |
| "you really give an altar call, don't ya?" | 1:42 | |
| But of course, mental illness | 1:46 | |
| and emotional confusion, | 1:49 | |
| it's no laughing matter. | 1:51 | |
| Some of you know firsthand | 1:55 | |
| the hell of the tormented mind, | 1:58 | |
| in yourself or in someone you love. | 2:02 | |
| Where does one take such torment? | 2:06 | |
| Perhaps that screaming, troubled young man | 2:11 | |
| had taken his misery to the right place | 2:15 | |
| in taking it to church. | 2:19 | |
| Today's Gospel lesson | 2:22 | |
| is Jesus' very first sermon | 2:26 | |
| at the synagogue in Capernaum, | 2:29 | |
| from Mark 1: | 2:33 | |
| And they went to Capernaum; | 2:36 | |
| and immediately on the sabbath | 2:37 | |
| he entered into the synagogue, and he taught. | 2:39 | |
| And they were amazed at his teaching, | 2:43 | |
| because he taught as one who had authority, | 2:45 | |
| and not as the scribes. | 2:47 | |
| And immediately there was in that synagogue | 2:49 | |
| a man with an unclean spirit. | 2:53 | |
| And he cried out, "What have you to do with us, | 2:56 | |
| "Jesus of Nazareth? | 2:59 | |
| "Have you come to destroy us? | 3:01 | |
| "I know who you are, the Holy One of God." | 3:02 | |
| But Jesus rebuked him, saying, | 3:07 | |
| "Be silent, come out of him!" | 3:10 | |
| And the unclean spirit, convulsing him | 3:13 | |
| and crying out with a loud voice, came out of him. | 3:15 | |
| And they were all amazed, | 3:20 | |
| so that they questioned among themselves, saying, | 3:22 | |
| "What is this? | 3:25 | |
| "A new teaching? | 3:26 | |
| "With authority he commands even the unclean spirits, | 3:30 | |
| "and they obey him." | 3:35 | |
| This is the Word of the Lord. | 3:38 | |
| Jesus, | 3:45 | |
| the newest preacher in town, | 3:48 | |
| has just finished his first sermon at Capernaum. | 3:49 | |
| And as the hymn is being sung, | 3:53 | |
| this young man cries out in the middle of church, | 3:55 | |
| began shouting these vague threats | 4:00 | |
| at the preacher. | 4:02 | |
| "I know who you are," he says. | 4:04 | |
| Something howling deep within the man, | 4:08 | |
| "You're the holy one of God." | 4:11 | |
| And this happens in the synagogue | 4:16 | |
| on the holy sabbath. | 4:18 | |
| "Shut up," says Jesus, | 4:21 | |
| "Come out of him." | 4:22 | |
| Things were getting odd | 4:26 | |
| that day in Capernaum. | 4:29 | |
| The man fell on the floor, | 4:32 | |
| his arms beating wildly, | 4:33 | |
| his legs thrown out, | 4:35 | |
| people stepped back, gave him a wide circle, | 4:38 | |
| froths of foam, | 4:43 | |
| strange cries coming from his mouth. | 4:44 | |
| And then, the man grew strangely calm. | 4:48 | |
| A tranquil look came over his face. | 4:52 | |
| He lay very still. | 4:55 | |
| Slowly, he picked himself up. | 4:59 | |
| His eyes were clear | 5:01 | |
| and his voice calm and composed. | 5:03 | |
| "What is this," people asked. | 5:10 | |
| And it occurred in church, | 5:15 | |
| of all places. | 5:17 | |
| I've had the privilege of visiting | 5:20 | |
| at the synagogue of Capernaum, | 5:21 | |
| the archeological site. | 5:23 | |
| And they can show you the pulpit | 5:27 | |
| from which Jesus must have preached. | 5:30 | |
| When I was there, | 5:34 | |
| I fantasized in my mind, | 5:35 | |
| wondering, just where was it in the synagogue | 5:37 | |
| that this episode occurred | 5:40 | |
| right in the middle of the sabbath congregation. | 5:42 | |
| Such events are all the more remarkable in church | 5:47 | |
| because church is one of the most planned | 5:50 | |
| and ordered, and orderly | 5:54 | |
| of human gatherings. | 5:57 | |
| It's one of the most quiet and controlled times | 6:00 | |
| of the week, church. | 6:02 | |
| We gather, we sit quietly, | 6:05 | |
| fixed in rows of pews, | 6:07 | |
| everything measured and moderate. | 6:10 | |
| I can still remember, as a child, | 6:12 | |
| the pain, I guess it was the pain | 6:14 | |
| of having to sit quietly and still in church. | 6:17 | |
| Then, there're those rare occasions | 6:24 | |
| when there is some intrusion | 6:26 | |
| into our ordered solemnity. | 6:29 | |
| Say, someone slumps forward | 6:32 | |
| in the pew with a health crisis. | 6:34 | |
| Somebody in a shabby dress stumbles in off the street. | 6:38 | |
| Or a sleeping child wakes and begins to scream. | 6:43 | |
| And we're shaken by that intrusion, | 6:48 | |
| in church of all places. | 6:52 | |
| It's an interruption | 6:56 | |
| into what church is supposed to be. | 6:57 | |
| I've been known to tell my students | 7:03 | |
| at the divinity school, | 7:04 | |
| "You need to picture yourself as a pastor, | 7:06 | |
| "you're leading worship on Sunday morning, | 7:09 | |
| "and then, there's some unfortunate intrusion. | 7:11 | |
| "Someone has a health crisis, | 7:15 | |
| "somebody speaks out. | 7:18 | |
| "You need to picture in your mind | 7:21 | |
| "how you'll handle that, | 7:22 | |
| "as a pastor. | 7:24 | |
| "Will you call for an ambulance? | 7:25 | |
| "Would you look to the ushers | 7:27 | |
| "to help you out? | 7:29 | |
| "How would you handle this?" | 7:30 | |
| Because despite our best efforts | 7:33 | |
| as ministers and musicians, | 7:34 | |
| well, glitches, disturbances, | 7:37 | |
| interruptions, occur in church, | 7:40 | |
| of all places. | 7:44 | |
| It happened to Jesus. | 7:47 | |
| Awhile back, a student pastor, | 7:50 | |
| seminarian, was telling me | 7:52 | |
| that it's in his little church in eastern North Carolina, | 7:54 | |
| and as their custom was, | 7:57 | |
| he went to the service, | 8:00 | |
| he asked, "Are there any prayer requests?" | 8:01 | |
| And usually this was a ritual time, | 8:05 | |
| people stood up and gave thanks, | 8:07 | |
| a grandmother was visiting from Idaho, | 8:09 | |
| or someone said, "George got | 8:11 | |
| "through his gall bladder surgery okay | 8:13 | |
| "and we want to thank God for that." | 8:15 | |
| "The dog had puppies," whatever. | 8:17 | |
| But he said, on this Sunday, | 8:21 | |
| the first person to stand up | 8:23 | |
| said, | 8:26 | |
| "I don't know if any of you've heard or not, but | 8:29 | |
| "John left us last week | 8:32 | |
| "and I don't know what | 8:36 | |
| "the girls and I are going to do to survive." | 8:38 | |
| And that little church got real | 8:46 | |
| quiet. | 8:49 | |
| Because that was just a little more | 8:51 | |
| prayer | 8:53 | |
| than they wanted. | 8:55 | |
| Church can be so ordered | 8:59 | |
| and so graceful and beautiful, | 9:01 | |
| serene and still. | 9:03 | |
| Church | 9:07 | |
| so ordered is, | 9:09 | |
| it's the world as we would like it to be. | 9:11 | |
| Not just on Sunday mornings, | 9:14 | |
| but always. | 9:15 | |
| But of course, that's not the world. | 9:19 | |
| We got big, thick, oak doors on this place. | 9:23 | |
| But sometimes, things burst in those doors | 9:29 | |
| and church gets interrupted. | 9:34 | |
| This world, for all its beauty and grace, | 9:38 | |
| is also the world of the brokenhearted. | 9:40 | |
| This weekend, the musical, Fantastics, | 9:44 | |
| ha been playing on campus. | 9:47 | |
| And toward the end of the | 9:48 | |
| musical, this | 9:50 | |
| once naive young man and woman | 9:51 | |
| join in a song, | 9:55 | |
| only the heart | 9:58 | |
| that's been hurt | 10:02 | |
| is whole. | 10:03 | |
| Well, if that's true, | 10:07 | |
| then there's a lot of | 10:07 | |
| healthy hearts | 10:09 | |
| in the world. | 10:11 | |
| Because there's a lot of brokenness | 10:13 | |
| out there. | 10:15 | |
| Things just don't go well for people. | 10:17 | |
| That troubled man, | 10:22 | |
| screaming at Jesus that day, | 10:24 | |
| so full of demonic turmoil | 10:27 | |
| and possessed by this darkness, | 10:30 | |
| let him be a metaphor, | 10:34 | |
| a symbol, | 10:36 | |
| of all the chaotic confusion | 10:38 | |
| that sometimes, despite our best efforts | 10:41 | |
| on Sunday morning, | 10:44 | |
| buckles up, surges forth, | 10:46 | |
| breaks, intrudes, | 10:48 | |
| even in church, | 10:51 | |
| of all places. | 10:52 | |
| And I just don't know how well | 10:56 | |
| my nice middle class, | 10:58 | |
| middle-of-the-road | 11:00 | |
| church does | 11:01 | |
| with such darkness. | 11:05 | |
| We do better in the daylight, | 11:09 | |
| 11 o'clock, Sunday morning. | 11:11 | |
| A couple of weeks ago, | 11:15 | |
| I was preaching up at Harvard Memorial Church | 11:16 | |
| and at the end of the service | 11:19 | |
| everybody filed out, a young man lingered. | 11:20 | |
| He said to me, | 11:23 | |
| he thanked me for the sermon, | 11:26 | |
| and he said, | 11:28 | |
| "I used to come to this church, | 11:29 | |
| "but I haven't been here in about a year." | 11:31 | |
| He said, "I've been going to this little church | 11:35 | |
| "out on the edge of town." | 11:37 | |
| And I said, "Why don't you attend here anymore?" | 11:40 | |
| And he said, "Oh, the music's beautiful, | 11:44 | |
| "and the preacher's always great, but, | 11:46 | |
| "but," he said, "about a year ago, | 11:50 | |
| "I lost my job. | 11:51 | |
| "I started drinking too much. | 11:54 | |
| "My girlfriend left me | 11:57 | |
| "and my life just fell apart. | 12:00 | |
| "And right about then, | 12:04 | |
| "kind of the way they do church here, | 12:06 | |
| "it just, | 12:08 | |
| "it wasn't enough." | 12:10 | |
| "And I go out to this little church | 12:12 | |
| "where the music is just a little more engaging, | 12:14 | |
| "and the preacher, every now and then, | 12:18 | |
| "will get in your face, | 12:19 | |
| "and, | 12:20 | |
| "and I thought, yeah, I just don't know | 12:24 | |
| "that my kind of church does that well | 12:26 | |
| "when it gets dark. | 12:31 | |
| "And there's a lot of dark out there, | 12:35 | |
| "in here." | 12:39 | |
| I recall a haunting story of a young boy's awareness | 12:42 | |
| of that darkness ahead. | 12:47 | |
| It's in Par Lagerkvist's story, | 12:51 | |
| My father and I. | 12:54 | |
| Par Lagerkvist tells about when he was a little boy, | 12:56 | |
| he and his father walked out one Sunday afternoon | 12:59 | |
| and suddenly the clouds came over | 13:02 | |
| and it was an early dark. | 13:04 | |
| It had gotten so dark they had no way | 13:05 | |
| to find their way back to their little village, | 13:07 | |
| except by following the train tracks back. | 13:09 | |
| And he said, "I walked beside my father. | 13:14 | |
| "I held tightly onto his hand | 13:16 | |
| "and I said, father, I'm afraid. | 13:18 | |
| "And my father looked down at me and said, | 13:22 | |
| "there's nothing to be afraid of. | 13:24 | |
| "I'm here and don't you know God is here?" | 13:27 | |
| But Par Lagerkvist said, | 13:32 | |
| "It didn't help. | 13:35 | |
| "I still felt this odd sense of fear." | 13:36 | |
| And there, in the darkness, | 13:41 | |
| right about that time, | 13:42 | |
| from out of nowhere, | 13:43 | |
| he says, | 13:45 | |
| "As we were rounding the bend, | 13:48 | |
| "suddenly there was a mighty roar behind us. | 13:49 | |
| "We were awakened out of our thoughts, alarmed. | 13:52 | |
| "Father pulled me down the embankment, | 13:55 | |
| "down into an abyss, | 13:57 | |
| "held me there. | 13:58 | |
| "A train tore past, | 14:00 | |
| "a black train, | 14:02 | |
| "all the lights in the carriages were out. | 14:03 | |
| "It was going at frantic speed. | 14:06 | |
| "What sort of train was it? | 14:08 | |
| "There wasn't one due now. | 14:11 | |
| "We gazed at it in terror. | 14:13 | |
| "The fire blazed in the huge engines, | 14:14 | |
| "sparks whirled in the night. | 14:16 | |
| "It was terrible. | 14:18 | |
| "The driver stood there in the light of the fire, | 14:19 | |
| "pale, motionless, his features as though stone. | 14:22 | |
| "Father didn't recognize him. | 14:27 | |
| "The driver just stared straight ahead, | 14:28 | |
| "as though intent only on rushing into the darkness, | 14:32 | |
| "far into the darkness that had no end. | 14:35 | |
| "And then, it was gone. | 14:41 | |
| "We climbed back up in the embankment. | 14:44 | |
| "We walked in silence. | 14:45 | |
| "My whole body was shaking. | 14:49 | |
| "It was for me, | 14:52 | |
| "for my sake. | 14:54 | |
| "I knew what it meant. | 14:56 | |
| "It was the anguish that was to come. | 14:59 | |
| "It was the unknown. | 15:02 | |
| "It was all that Father could never protect me from. | 15:04 | |
| "That was how this world, this life, | 15:09 | |
| "would be for me. | 15:11 | |
| "It wouldn't be like Father's, | 15:12 | |
| "where everything was secure and certain. | 15:14 | |
| "It just hurdled past, | 15:18 | |
| "blazing | 15:20 | |
| "into the darkness ahead." | 15:22 | |
| Some of you are young, | 15:27 | |
| bright future, | 15:30 | |
| but you're smart enough to know | 15:33 | |
| there is this darkness ahead. | 15:35 | |
| Oh, the darkness ahead | 15:41 | |
| on this crisp, Sunday, | 15:42 | |
| this fourth Sunday after Epiphany, the season of light. | 15:44 | |
| What of the darkness that intrudes into life? | 15:49 | |
| The confusion bubbles up, | 15:56 | |
| and cracks through the crust of sanity. | 15:58 | |
| What the answer? | 16:05 | |
| What does Jesus do with that darkness? | 16:08 | |
| Did you not hear | 16:14 | |
| today's Gospel? | 16:17 | |
| Jesus rebuked, | 16:21 | |
| "Be silent, | 16:24 | |
| "come out of him." | 16:25 | |
| The unclean spirit, convulsing and crying out | 16:26 | |
| with a loud voice, came out | 16:28 | |
| and they all were amazed and they questioned, | 16:29 | |
| "What is this? | 16:32 | |
| "With authority, he commands even the unclean spirits. | 16:36 | |
| "What is this?" | 16:45 | |
| It's Jesus, | 16:50 | |
| intruding. | 16:52 | |
| Not only that day at Capernaum, | 16:56 | |
| not only that | 16:58 | |
| wild, tormented man intruded, | 17:00 | |
| but also Jesus intruded. | 17:03 | |
| With a word of authority over the darkness, | 17:06 | |
| we find difficult even to name. | 17:10 | |
| When my sister's son died, | 17:16 | |
| on his 16th birthday, | 17:18 | |
| she was thrown into terrible grief, | 17:21 | |
| world shaken. | 17:24 | |
| A couple of months after her son's death, | 17:27 | |
| she was surprised in the middle of the afternoon, | 17:30 | |
| a doorbell rang and standing there | 17:32 | |
| was this Episcopal priest. | 17:35 | |
| He lived a couple of blocks away. | 17:37 | |
| She did not know him that well, | 17:39 | |
| he was not her pastor. | 17:41 | |
| This Episcopal priest standing there on the doorstep, | 17:44 | |
| he said, "Well, how are ya doing?" | 17:46 | |
| And she said, "Well, I think I'm doing fine. | 17:49 | |
| "I think I'm coping just fine." | 17:51 | |
| And he said, | 17:54 | |
| "You're lying. | 17:56 | |
| "Go in there, put on a pot of coffee. | 17:59 | |
| "We got to do business." | 18:01 | |
| And she said, "With that, I just melted into his arms | 18:04 | |
| "in this flood of grief. | 18:07 | |
| "For two hours he stayed there. | 18:10 | |
| "We talked. | 18:12 | |
| "He allowed himself to be exposed to that much pain." | 18:13 | |
| Looking back, she said, | 18:20 | |
| "I'll always be grateful for that pushy priest." | 18:21 | |
| Jesus | 18:29 | |
| is pushy. | 18:30 | |
| He enters the hurt | 18:33 | |
| that we dare not know how to speak its name, | 18:35 | |
| the darkness ahead, | 18:38 | |
| he rebukes it, commands it to depart, | 18:40 | |
| he stills the troubled spirit | 18:44 | |
| of those in torment. | 18:47 | |
| He is the holy one of God | 18:48 | |
| intruding among us, | 18:51 | |
| enters the pain, | 18:53 | |
| confronts the evil, | 18:54 | |
| takes charge, | 18:56 | |
| heals the broken heart. | 18:57 | |
| Amen. | 19:02 |
