William H. Willimon - "Come, Hear John Preach" (December 17, 2000)

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-	We meet him every year about this time.	0:04
	He was Jesus's cousin,	0:08
	or at least his mother was Mary's cousin,	0:11
	but he doesn't sound much like Jesus when he preaches.	0:16
	He preaches not in some high lifted up pulpit	0:21
	in some beautiful church like this one.	0:26
	But rather, he preaches out in the wilderness.	0:30
	If you wanted to hear sermons like his,	0:34
	you had to go out into the desert, out on the margins.	0:36
	Hear today's gospel.	0:44
	In the 15th year of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius,	0:47
	the word of God came to John,	0:52
	son of Zechariah, in the wilderness.	0:55
	John went into all the region around the Jordan	0:58
	proclaiming of baptism, of repentance	1:00
	for forgiveness of sins.	1:03
	As is written in the book	1:05
	of the words of the Prophet Isaiah,	1:07
	"A voice crying in the wilderness.	1:09
	"prepare the way of the Lord	1:12
	"Make his way straight.	1:14
	John said to the crowds who came out to hear him,	1:17
	"You brute of vipers,	1:21
	"Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?	1:23
	"Bear fruits worthy of repentance.	1:25
	"Do not begin to say to yourselves,	1:28
	"we have Abraham as our ancestor.	1:29
	"I tell you God is able from the stones	1:31
	"to raise up children!"	1:34
	To Abraham, "Even now the ax is lying	1:35
	"at the root of the tree.	1:38
	"Every tree, therefore that does not bear	1:39
	"good fruit will be cut down and thrown to the fire.	1:42
	"The crowds ask him, well what should we do?"	1:46
	In reply John said to them,	1:50
	"Whoever has two coats,	1:52
	"must share with anyone who has none.	1:54
	"Whoever has food, must do likewise."	1:56
	Even tax collectors came to be baptized.	1:59
	And they asked him, "Teacher, what should we do?"	2:02
	He said to them,	2:05
	"Collect no more than that is prescribed for you."	2:05
	Soldiers also asked what should we do?	2:09
	He said to them,	2:12
	"Do not extort money from anyone by threats,	2:13
	"or false accusation, be satisfied with your wages."	2:16
	People were filled with expectation.	2:21
	And were questioning their hearts concerning John,	2:25
	whether he might be Messiah.	2:28
	John answered, saying, "I baptize you with water	2:31
	"but one is more powerful than I coming.	2:34
	"I'm not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals.	2:38
	"He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit, and fire.	2:41
	"His whittling fork is in his hand	2:46
	"to clear the threshing floor,	2:48
	"to gather the wheat into his granary.	2:50
	"But the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire."	2:52
	So with many other exhortations,	2:57
	John proclaimed the good news to the people.	2:59
	This is the word of the Lord.	3:03
	Thanks be to God	3:06
-	Thanks be to God.
-	You had to go out,	3:11
	out to the wilderness to hear	3:14
	a preacher like John.	3:17
	When I was growing up, I remember that	3:20
	as a teenager, sometimes on Saturday nights	3:22
	we would go out to a field, out on the edge of town.	3:25
	And there was pitched a huge tent.	3:30
	And we would pull in there in the parking area	3:34
	and roll down the windows.	3:39
	Wouldn't get out of the car, we just roll down the windows	3:40
	and try to hear that tent preacher preach.	3:44
	There under that big tent with a folding metal chairs,	3:49
	field hands, and mill workers gathered	3:54
	and they would listen, and sometimes shout back	3:59
	at the preacher.	4:03
	It was amusing to us.	4:05
	These traveling tent preachers.	4:07
	In our big downtown church,	4:09
	you never heard preaching like that.	4:11
	To get a preacher who shouted	4:14
	and whooped, and who knew how to	4:17
	handle a guitar, or a snake.	4:19
	You had to go out to the margins.	4:22
	You had to go out to the edge of town,	4:26
	where the rednecks and the lint heads, and the poor,	4:27
	and the dispossessed,	4:31
	you had to go out to where they talked to God.	4:32
	People who's lives were virtually owned	4:36
	by the genteel folk, who listened to easier	4:40
	preachers down and the big downtown churches.	4:44
	But if you wanted to hear preaching like that	4:48
	you had to go out.	4:50
	You had to go out to the edge of town.	4:52
	And sitting there, we wondered,	4:56
	who would, who would want to hear preaching like that?	5:00
	Well, as it turns out a lot of people.	5:06
	Multitudes, the gospels say.	5:10
	Multitudes went out when John preached.	5:12
	City folk dropped whatever they were doing	5:16
	and they went out there to the wilderness	5:18
	to hear him preach.	5:20
	And what they heard,	5:22
	Oh, you bunch of dead stones in the muddy water,	5:25
	God's gonna make a family out of these stones.	5:31
	God's gonna, you heap of dry chaff, mixed in with the wheat,	5:34
	God's gonna burn you.	5:40
	God's gonna start a fire.	5:41
	Oh, I wash you with water,	5:43
	there's one coming after me	5:45
	that's just going to burn you up.	5:46
	The judge is about to hold court,	5:48
	and he's got your summons.	5:51
	If you cheated somebody,	5:54
	you go, you make it right.	5:56
	'Cause the ax, the judge, the fire, the flood.	5:58
	Why would anybody go out to hear preaching like that?	6:04
	Sometimes I go around,	6:10
	and I discuss preaching with preachers.	6:11
	And we talk about the need to listen	6:14
	to the biblical text, and then you stand up	6:19
	and you boldly, you tell the congregation	6:22
	what you've heard in the biblical text.	6:24
	And whenever we've began to talking like that	6:28
	as preachers, there's always somebody	6:30
	some preacher, who will say	6:32
	wait a minute, laypeople don't come to church	6:34
	to hear the truth.	6:37
	Laypeople don't come to church on Sunday	6:39
	to hear things that disturb them,	6:42
	and bump them, and jolt them.	6:44
	They come to have me stroke, they come to be soothed,	6:45
	to hear what they've always heard.	6:48
	Well if that's true,	6:53
	why did so many people go out to the desert,	6:55
	to hear John talk about an ax,	7:00
	and a judge, and the fire?	7:04
	My Jjnior year of college,	7:09
	I started thinking about going to seminary	7:10
	to be a preacher.	7:12
	And I finally got up the courage	7:14
	to tell my mother what I was thinking about.	7:16
	She had other things in mind.	7:18
	Thought I should go to law school,	7:20
	thought maybe I should be a teacher.	7:21
	She didn't like my plans.	7:24
	And she told me flat out, she said,	7:26
	"Well, I don't think you have many gifts	7:29
	"for being a preacher.	7:33
	"I think you're gonna be a failure."	7:33
	(congregation laughing)	7:35
	And I said, "Every other mother in America	7:37
	"wants her son to grow up to be a preacher."	7:39
	She says, "Well, I don't."	7:41
	(congregation laughing)	7:42
	Ministers have got 300 bosses,	7:43
	Pastors have always got to be nice to people,	7:46
	they gotta tell people what they want to hear.	7:50
	You don't have any of those gifts.	7:52
	(congregation laughing)	7:55
	I thanked her for her maternal encouragement.	7:58
	And then I asked, "Well, if you're right about that	8:03
	"then explain to me why so many people	8:07
	"went out to hear John preach."	8:11
	Some of you have obtained copies of my sermons	8:16
	out of the narthex after the service.	8:19
	And a lot of you complain that	8:20
	when you get that printed copy of the sermon	8:22
	that's been done up about a week ago	8:24
	and you compare that printed sermon	8:26
	to what you heard from the pulpit,	8:28
	it's not the same sermon.	8:31
	And you wonder why.	8:34
	Well I'll explain to you.	8:36
	Some of my best sermon revision	8:38
	takes place about 8:30 on a Sunday morning	8:42
	and I'm drinking coffee, and I'm sitting there	8:46
	and I read over what I prepared to preach.	8:49
	And I say to myself,	8:53
	"I'm not going to go out there and say that to those people.	8:55
	"Are you crazy?"	8:59
	I like living in Durham,	9:00
	we've got the grapes hung in the parsonage.	9:03
	I don't wanna move, I'm not gonna say those things.	9:04
	And so I go through, I work on that sermon,	9:07
	that's why there's often a big difference	9:09
	by what's said there on the paper, and what,	9:12
	you have to be careful, you can't just go out there and	9:15
	look people, well if that's true,	9:19
	how come so many people went out	9:24
	to hear John preach?	9:26
	Multitudes.	9:30
	Great multitudes came out from the capital city.	9:32
	Fire breathing preacher, not from a limestone pulpit,	9:35
	but out there in the dust.	9:39
	Calling them "you brute of vipers."	9:42
	We don't have the full text	9:46
	preserved of John's sermons,	9:48
	but we got enough to indicate what kind sermons he preached.	9:50
	These images, John said, "I'm like the ax of the Lord,	9:54
	"I'm gonna cut these trees down	9:58
	"and throw them in the fire.	10:00
	"I'm the dog that's growling just outside the door.	10:02
	"You better get washed up.	10:06
	"You're dead.	10:09
	"You smell the fire."	10:11
	And multitudes tramped through the brambles,	10:14
	and the brush to hear John preach.	10:17
	I wonder what John might tell us preachers.	10:27
	We preach in the air conditioned comfort	10:31
	of the big church, big pulpit.	10:32
	Hide behind limestone.	10:35
	I wonder if John would say to us preachers	10:39
	you know you sell your people short.	10:42
	There are these moments	10:47
	when I see what John's talking about.	10:49
	Maybe I slip up, and I say something	10:51
	a bit more directly than maybe I intended.	10:53
	I say in effect, you know you're not right.	10:58
	You need a bath.	11:01
	Some part of you, you know needs to be cut out, removed.	11:03
	There's part of you that just needs	11:08
	to be burned away and purified.	11:09
	And you say, okay.	11:13
	Just go ahead, go ahead preach.	11:16
	Preach like John.	11:17
	And that's why they came out to hear John preach.	11:21
	Somebody, when John was preaching,	11:24
	John made basically two points in his sermons.	11:28
	Point one, God is coming.	11:31
	And point two, you can change and be ready.	11:35
	You, you can get cleaned, purified, washed,	11:43
	start over like a newborn.	11:47
	It's hard.	11:51
	It's hard sometimes as a preacher	11:53
	you go to visit somebody that's just had a baby.	11:54
	And the mother will say,	11:57
	mother's there in the room resting,	11:59
	and says, "I want you to go by the nursery	12:00
	"and see our baby."	12:02
	And I say, "Well which baby will it be?"	12:04
	"Oh, you'll know the baby, just go there,	12:06
	"you'll look, has looks just like his father.	12:07
	"You go look."	12:10
	I go in there and they all look the same to me.	12:12
	They all lined up there.	12:13
	And why is that?	12:17
	Well, because they're just so fresh,	12:19
	and they're new, and young.	12:22
	And they're sleeping peacefully,	12:25
	and why shouldn't they sleep peacefully?	12:28
	They don't yet have any history,	12:30
	they yet have any failures, any regrets.	12:32
	And I think that's one reason,	12:36
	particularly this time a year,	12:38
	we just love these babies because wouldn't it be great	12:40
	to start over, to be fresh, clean, and new?	12:45
	I think that's why they came to hear John preach.	12:53
	When John preached,	12:56
	well, when you first heard those harsh words	12:58
	but then when you thought about it,	13:02
	those words became good news.	13:05
	It was like the desert broke into blossom.	13:09
	The dry dust became a garden, fresh and new.	13:14
	Fred Craddock reminds me of an old movie,	13:22
	The High and the Mighty.	13:25
	I don't know if any of remember the movie	13:27
	The High and the Mighty,	13:29
	but toward the end of the movie,	13:30
	they're flying out over the Atlantic,	13:32
	the voice of the pilot comes over the PA, and says,	13:34
	"There's a problem with the airplane,	13:40
	"we don't think we can fix it.	13:41
	"I don't think we're gonna make it.	13:44
	"And I wanna tell you this now, so that you can	13:47
	"do whatever you need to do."	13:50
	And at that point, back in the cabin, there is a woman,	13:54
	elegantly dressed woman.	13:58
	And she began, at the hearing of that announcement to,	14:01
	she takes off the diamond necklace from around her neck.	14:06
	She removes a brooch, she takes of her rings,	14:09
	and she begins methodically to wipe off the makeup	14:14
	from her face.	14:18
	And when she does, she wipes off that makeup,	14:20
	and you can see that the makeup has been covering this	14:22
	huge scar across her face.	14:25
	Now it's visible.	14:28
	You see, she's taking off the mask.	14:31
	She will now end her life as she really is.	14:37
	As the movie turns out, the flight is saved.	14:44
	They make it to the airport.	14:49
	But when that woman gets off that plane,	14:51
	she is a very different person.	14:53
	Somebody offered her honesty.	14:57
	And she took it.	15:01
	Somebody offered her the opportunity	15:03
	to take off the mask, and face God	15:06
	as she really is.	15:08
	And she did it.	15:10
	And that's why they came to hear John preach.	15:12
	I don't know whether it was the O.J. Simpson trial	15:20
	or maybe the Clinton impeachment hearings,	15:23
	I don't know, one of those legal embarrassments.	15:25
	And I, in my sermon, I made some little remark about	15:27
	attorneys, and so naturally,	15:30
	I was on guard when one of you came out of the,	15:33
	an attorney came out of the chapel	15:36
	and said to me, about the sermon, he said,	15:38
	"Thanks, thanks for that, we deserved it."	15:43
	I said, "Thanks?"	15:49
	He said, "You know, it is great to come to church	15:52
	"and hear the truth."	15:56
	I believe a man like that would go even out into the desert,	16:00
	to hear John preach.	16:05
	I was preaching up in Akron, Ohio one weekend in the winter,	16:08
	they kept me at a downtown motel,	16:12
	and at night I decide I'd go out and risk life and limb	16:15
	take a walk around Akron,	16:19
	but it was so depressing after a couple blocks,	16:21
	I just went back to the motel.	16:23
	These burned out buildings and these dirty alleyways.	16:25
	Well, I woke up the next morning on Sunday	16:32
	and I looked out the window	16:35
	and there had be an unexpected snow.	16:37
	And all of the town was blanketed in this	16:41
	pure, white blanket.	16:44
	And I rushed put on my coat, went outside,	16:48
	and I walked for blocks,	16:53
	just marveling at the poetic transformation.	16:55
	One of the prophets says,	17:02
	"Your sins, which are many,	17:03
	"shall be whiter than snow."	17:07
	Well, John preached that.	17:12
	And at our best in some shining moment	17:16
	when we are forced to look in the mirror of truth,	17:19
	forced to admit that we are not the people we ought to be.	17:22
	And somebody like John just holds that mirror up	17:26
	so that we can't avoid it.	17:29
	Chastened, we go to our knees	17:32
	and we ask God, take an ax.	17:35
	Kindle the fire, purge me, wash me,	17:38
	purify me, change me.	17:42
	John preached that, the possibility	17:45
	of turn around, metanoia.	17:47
	Get ready, God is coming.	17:50
	That was John's message.	17:52
	John.	17:55
	John preached that nobody is beyond	17:58
	God's gracious reach.	18:02
	God comes to us, out in the wilderness,	18:06
	so that we might come to God.	18:10
	John preached that.	18:15
	I don't know if you've ever heard John preach or not.	18:17
	Multitudes have.	18:21
	You will.	18:24

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Come, Hear John Preach" (December 17, 2000)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:04. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 18:28.
Based on the story of the multitudes who go all the way out to the wilderness to hear John the Baptist preaching about judgment and repentance, the preacher argues that people do want to hear the truth, even if the truth is harsh. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4jw8731r

Date:

December 17, 2000

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Advent

Biblical Book:

Matthew

Chapter and Verse:

Matthew 3:1-12

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1044
ref10245_7m6
uachapelsermaud
duke:321073
dcrau001688
ark:/87924/r4jw8731r
9ccee5ef-bd1b-4e3a-b13d-13c9a1324c30

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings

Language:

English

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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Provenance:

The Duke University Chapel Recordings were transferred to the Duke University Archives beginning in 1970.

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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This recording may contain 3rd party materials, such as music or readings that are therefore not covered by the Creative Commons license indicated here. For more information see https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/research/citations-and-permissions.

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