William H. Willimon - "A Real Prophet" (June 17, 2001)

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-	The second lesson is from the seventh chapter	0:05
	of the Gospel according to Luke.	0:07
	It is the account of a sinful woman forgiven.	0:09
	One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to eat with him,	0:12
	and he went into the Pharisee's house	0:14
	and took his place at the table.	0:16
	And a woman in the city, who was a sinner,	0:18
	having learned that he was eating in the Pharisee's house,	0:20
	brought an alabaster jar of ointment.	0:23
	She stood behind him at his feet, weeping,	0:25
	and began to bathe his feet with her tears	0:28
	and to dry them with her hair.	0:30
	Then she continued kissing his feet	0:32
	and anointing them with the ointment.	0:34
	Now when the Pharisee who had invited him saw it,	0:36
	he said to himself, "If this man were a prophet,	0:38
	he would have known who and what kind of woman this is	0:41
	who is touching him-that she is a sinner."	0:44
	Jesus spoke up and said to him,	0:47
	"Simon, I have something to say to you."	0:49
	"Teacher," he replied, "speak."	0:51
	"A certain creditor had two debtors;	0:53
	one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty.	0:55
	When they could not pay, he canceled the debts	0:59
	of both of them.	1:00
	Now which of them will love him more?"	1:02
	Simon answered, "I suppose the one for whom	1:03
	he canceled the greatest debt."	1:06
	And Jesus said to him, "You have judged rightly."	1:07
	Then turning to the woman, he said to Simon,	1:11
	"Do you see this woman? I entered your house;	1:13
	you gave me no water for my feet, but she has bathed my feet	1:15
	with her tears and dried them with her hair.	1:19
	You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in	1:21
	she has not stopped kissing my feet.	1:24
	You did not anoint my head with oil,	1:26
	but she has anointed my feet with ointment.	1:28
	Therefore, I tell you, her sins, which were many,	1:30
	have been forgiven; hence she has shown great love.	1:33
	But the one to whom little is forgiven, loves little."	1:36
	Then he said to her, "Your sins are forgiven."	1:40
	But those who were at the table with him began to say	1:43
	among themselves, "Who is this who even forgives sins?"	1:46
	And he said to the woman, "Your faith has saved you;	1:49
	go in peace."	1:52
	This is the Word of the Lord.	1:53
-	Thanks be to God.	1:55
-	When I was in college, a friend of mine asked me	2:05
	to go with him to a weekend that was for people	2:09
	who were thinking about going to seminary,	2:14
	thinking about going into the ministry.	2:18
	And, I had been thinking about that,	2:21
	and so I went down there for this weekend,	2:25
	and we had lots of speakers to talk about	2:29
	what seminary is like, what the ordained ministry is like.	2:32
	But the only thing I really remember is Saturday night,	2:37
	after most of the speeches were done,	2:40
	a group of these pastors in South Carolina	2:43
	just sat around talking about what it was like	2:49
	to be pastors.	2:53
	Now, this was in the mid-60s,	2:56
	civil rights movement in full swing.	3:01
	One pastor told about having his,	3:05
	the back window of his car knocked out with a brick	3:09
	while he was at a meeting, a church meeting	3:12
	on the civil rights issue.	3:15
	Another told of how his wife and his children	3:17
	had been persecuted, they had suffered in his little town	3:21
	because of his stand on racial justice.	3:25
	Well, I was hooked.	3:31
	I didn't know being a preacher was that interesting.	3:34
	(congregation laughing)	3:38
	I had grown up in a big downtown Methodist church,	3:38
	and none of our preachers ever talked like that,	3:41
	none of them ever had anything that interesting	3:43
	happen to them.	3:46
	But I sat there, and in my sophomoric way, I said,	3:48
	"Now wait, you know these pastors	3:51
	are prophets.	3:56
	They're not just pastors, they're real prophets."	3:58
	Like the prophets of the Old Testament,	4:05
	here were people that didn't mind mixing it up	4:08
	a little bit with the powers that be.	4:10
	They spoke truth.	4:12
	And you wonder, where are prophets now?	4:17
	I was remembering that fateful night	4:22
	from my youth when I met those fearless,	4:25
	young prophets who were also preachers.	4:27
	I was remembering that only one of them	4:32
	is still in the pastoral ministry today.	4:36
	Most of them eventually gave out,	4:41
	they burned out, they tuned out.	4:44
	And the tenure of prophets can be very short,	4:48
	as Jesus said, "A prophet is not without honor	4:52
	except in his own country."	4:56
	Prophets can have it tough because prophets,	5:00
	real prophets, they love God's truth more	5:04
	than they like the popularity, the praise of people.	5:08
	You hear the word "prophet" here, you think of Nathan,	5:15
	think of the prophet Nathan, King David.	5:19
	King David was Israel's most powerful king,	5:22
	and because, like a lot of powerful people,	5:27
	King David thought he could do anything he wanted.	5:29
	He took another man's wife as his wife.	5:32
	He arranged for the murder of her husband.	5:35
	And King David thought nobody would say anything	5:41
	about it, after all, he was on top, he was in charge,	5:44
	and nobody said anything about it.	5:48
	This little prophet, Nathan, went in there	5:51
	and said, "King, let me tell you a little story.	5:54
	There was a rich man, he had many flocks.	5:59
	But when his cronies came and he had to serve	6:03
	them something for dinner, he went down	6:06
	to the ghetto, he went down to this poor man	6:08
	who had nothing but one little ewe lamb	6:11
	that he loved like a child.	6:13
	He took that little lamb from the poor man,	6:15
	killed it, served it up for his cronies."	6:19
	King David said, "I swear to God,	6:22
	the man who's done this is going to die for it."	6:25
	And Nathan, little Nathan looked big King David in the eye	6:29
	and said, "You are the man."	6:33
	Wow, it takes a real prophet	6:39
	to tell a story like that,	6:45
	to say something like that to a powerful person.	6:46
	Maybe that's why prophets seem in such short supply.	6:50
	A friend of mine, he's preached from this pulpit,	6:56
	was called by our ex-President to do some confession.	7:00
	And he was roundly criticized by a lot of his	7:06
	evangelical Christian friends for being used	7:09
	by this politician in this way.	7:13
	But they didn't know him.	7:18
	Another friend of mine, who was in on this meeting,	7:22
	with these preachers who had been called	7:26
	to the White House to hear confession,	7:29
	he said to me, when I mentioned this to him later,	7:32
	he said, "Man, you should have heard Tony.	7:35
	He shook his finger at the President,	7:38
	he told him 'Here's what you've got to do,	7:41
	you can't wrap yourself around the Bible	7:44
	and act like this is okay.	7:47
	You've gotta do this, you gotta do that.'	7:49
	Got right in his face."	7:52
	Then my friend said, "You know,	7:55
	Tony is a real prophet."	7:58
	Maybe the President thought he had invited	8:04
	these little preachers up to the White House	8:05
	to kind of pat him on the head	8:08
	and tell him to be a good little bad boy, go on.	8:09
	No, he got a prophet.	8:12
	Prophets,	8:16
	people filled so with the Holy Spirit of God.	8:18
	People who care much more about the truth	8:23
	than they care for the popularity,	8:26
	the praise, the power.	8:28
	Today, today I think there's too many of us pastors,	8:32
	we think of ourselves as affirming	8:37
	and caring and loving.	8:39
	We are soothers of hurt feelings in the congregations,	8:43
	we are guardians of the status quo.	8:47
	Whatever happened to prophets?	8:51
	At the height of the civil rights movement,	8:56
	Martin Luther King, Jr. decided to speak out	8:58
	against the Vietnam War.	9:04
	His best friends, people who had marched with him	9:08
	in the movement, begged King not to do so.	9:10
	They said to him, "Do not endanger the strides	9:14
	that we have made here for racial justice	9:18
	by getting into this controversial area.	9:20
	There are a lot of our powerful friends in Congress	9:23
	that will desert us if you start criticizing the war."	9:27
	But they might have just wasted their breath,	9:32
	because King spoke out anyway because,	9:34
	well, Martin Luther King was a prophet.	9:39
	When Jeremiah, young Jeremiah was told by God	9:45
	to go, speak truth to the people of Israel,	9:48
	Jeremiah knew enough about prophecy to say,	9:51
	"Lord, I am only a youth; I am young,	9:54
	they're not going to listen to me."	9:57
	The voice of the Lord came to Jeremiah and said,	10:01
	"You go and you speak, and whether they hear	10:04
	or they refuse to hear, because that isn't	10:08
	the prophet's problem, whether they hear	10:10
	or refuse to hear, at least, as they're riding	10:12
	you out of town, at least you'll be able to,	10:16
	at least they will know a real prophet	10:18
	has been among them."	10:23
	I was at a gathering in the Spring	10:27
	of a group of clergy and laypeople.	10:30
	And we were talking about preaching,	10:33
	we were talking about what people look for in preaching,	10:35
	and what's good preaching, what's not good preaching,	10:39
	and one of the clergy said, and I hear this a lot	10:42
	at clergy gatherings, one of the clergy said,	10:46
	"These laypeople, they don't come to church	10:49
	to hear anything new, they don't come to church	10:52
	to hear anything that disturbs them or jolts them,	10:54
	they come down to church to hear	10:57
	what they've always heard, to go over the same stuff	10:59
	over and again, to make to be soothed and calmed.	11:01
	That's all those laypeople want."	11:06
	Well he forgot that there were laypeople in the meeting,	11:10
	(congregation laughing)	11:13
	and one of them fortunately spoke up and said,	11:14
	"Well, speaking for all laypeople everywhere,	11:18
	let me just say that we don't like to be bored	11:22
	on Sunday morning either, okay?	11:28
	And you ought to give us more credit.	11:32
	We can hear the truth.	11:35
	You preachers keep telling yourself	11:39
	over and over again, 'You can't say that,	11:41
	that will get them upset.'	11:43
	Because you're too scared to be a prophet."	11:46
	Well,	11:53
	Jesus is at the home of Simon the Pharisee.	11:56
	He's there for dinner.	12:01
	Pharisees, pious laypeople, used every waking moment	12:03
	to study the scriptures, they not only studied	12:08
	the scriptures but they believed in ethical	12:13
	embodiment of the scriptures.	12:15
	They put their faith into practice.	12:17
	Pharisees believed you ought to know God's Word	12:20
	and you ought to obey it, just like it says it,	12:22
	in every aspect of life.	12:25
	Well, it's a Jewish meal, so a blessing has been said,	12:29
	a prayer before the eating starts.	12:34
	And when a prayer is said, you see,	12:37
	it's kind of making that dinner table	12:38
	a place of worship, a holy place.	12:41
	In fact, scholars say that during this period,	12:44
	groups of Jewish men would get together	12:47
	for an evening meal and they would get together	12:50
	at the meal and they would discuss religious matters.	12:53
	They would do Bible study.	12:55
	Maybe this is one of those gatherings.	12:57
	It's a religious gathering there at the table	12:59
	after the prayer.	13:03
	And they're talking about religious things.	13:04
	And maybe that's why Rabbi Jesus had been invited.	13:09
	Well, during the meal, during this conversation	13:14
	at this kind of religious gathering, this woman comes in.	13:17
	Now only men were supposed to be discussing	13:22
	religious matters here at the table.	13:25
	This woman comes in, and she's not just any woman,	13:26
	she comes in and Luke says	13:31
	she is a woman of the city, a woman of the city.	13:35
	Woman of the city, woman of the night barges in,	13:41
	and she falls all over Jesus, she begins weeping,	13:46
	she lets down her hair, yes dear,	13:50
	letting down your hair meant the same thing	13:53
	back then it does today.	13:55
	She falls all over Jesus, she is weeping,	13:57
	her hair is all over His feet, she is washing His feet,	14:00
	she kisses His feet, she anoints His feet	14:04
	with a sensuous, sweet-smelling oil.	14:08
	Well, the men are trying to have	14:12
	a religious discussion at the table.	14:16
	And this is shocking, it's even erotic.	14:20
	Now, when Simon the Pharisee witnessed	14:26
	this carrying on at the table,	14:30
	he says, Luke says, to himself but loud enough	14:32
	for everybody at the table to hear him,	14:35
	"Well, if this man were a prophet,	14:38
	if this, I had heard he was a real prophet,	14:42
	but if he were a real prophet,	14:45
	he would know what kind of woman this is,	14:48
	how she makes her living, who she is,	14:52
	And what manner of woman who is touching him.	14:56
	She is a sinner!"	15:00
	The Greek word here, hapto, can mean,	15:05
	not only means touch, but caress, fondle.	15:08
	"If this man were a real prophet,	15:14
	here this woman carrying on, touching him."	15:16
	After all, who are real prophets?	15:23
	Have we not agreed that a real prophet is somebody	15:29
	who can, who tells the truth and tells it straight?	15:32
	A real prophet is somebody who can sniff out	15:37
	honest to goodness sin and call it by its proper name.	15:40
	Real prophets, oh everybody else,	15:45
	they may sugar-coat it and say, "Well, we're all only human,	15:47
	and maybe, hey, nobody's perfect,	15:51
	let he who is without sin throw the first stone."	15:56
	No, real prophets get in there and they say,	15:59
	"I'm sorry, I don't care what the world, this is sin."	16:01
	"If this Jesus were a real prophet..."	16:07
	Jesus says, "Simon,	16:14
	can I tell you a little story?"	16:17
	Reminds you a little bit of the prophet Nathan, King David,	16:21
	"just a little story; it's about a couple of Jews,	16:24
	it probably doesn't relate to you, but	16:27
	there was a man and he was owed debts by two other men.	16:29
	One of the men owed him a rather small debt,	16:34
	the other owed him a huge debt of money.	16:36
	Now, he forgave both of his debtors.	16:39
	Now think hard, which debtor do you think	16:46
	would be the more grateful?"	16:49
	And Simon says, "Well,	16:53
	I guess probably	16:57
	the one who was forgiven the greatest debt."	17:00
	"Got it," says Jesus, "look at this woman."	17:06
	Simon had accused Jesus of not being able to see this woman.	17:12
	Jesus says to Simon, "I want you now to look at this woman.	17:17
	I came to your house, you did little to welcome me.	17:22
	This woman has fallen all over me.	17:27
	She's washed my feet with her tears,	17:29
	she has behaved extravagantly,	17:31
	and maybe that's because her sin, which was so extravagant,	17:35
	has been extravagantly forgiven."	17:39
	Then Jesus says to the woman, he looks at the woman	17:45
	and he first now, he speaks to her,	17:49
	and he says simply, "Your sins are forgiven."	17:55
	You notice she didn't come in asking to be forgiven.	18:01
	She doesn't come in and say, "All right,	18:05
	I gotta be honest, I've messed up, I've done some things	18:07
	I shouldn't have done, I'm sorry, I..."	18:10
	He just says to her, "Your sins are forgiven."	18:12
	And that's when everybody at the table says,	18:17
	"Whoa, hey,	18:21
	who is this that forgives sins?	18:23
	Who is this?"	18:29
	Back to Simon's first statement, "Who is this?	18:32
	If this were a real prophet, as I have heard that he was,	18:35
	if he were a real prophet, he would be able	18:38
	to see what sort of sinful woman this is	18:41
	and call sin for what it is."	18:42
	After all, what are real prophets?	18:45
	Those who can honestly see the truth of God	18:48
	and they tell it and they call sin for what it is.	18:52
	Prophets are people who know what to do with sin.	18:56
	"Who is this?"	19:04
	In the past, over the past few months,	19:08
	I've been getting a lot of email and letters	19:09
	from people here and there, a few of them	19:13
	actually related to Duke or Duke Chapel,	19:16
	and a lot of them calling on me to resign	19:19
	because I accepted a report by a committee	19:21
	that recommended that we allow those Christian churches,	19:23
	not my own, but those churches that conduct	19:27
	same-sex unions, to do them here.	19:30
	And a lot of these letters, I noticed, said,	19:34
	"If you were a real man of God," or translate, prophet,	19:37
	"if you were a real prophet, you would show	19:42
	some backbone, you would take a Biblical stand,	19:46
	you would be able to say 'No' to such sin."	19:49
	And frankly, I can see their point,	19:55
	because prophets are people who call things	19:58
	by their true names.	20:02
	There are some churches out there that,	20:06
	what they call "exciting new forms of Christian ministry,"	20:09
	a real prophet would just say, "same old sin."	20:14
	Trouble is, that night at the table,	20:21
	I think Jesus was busy redefining prophecy.	20:23
	"If this man were a real prophet,	20:31
	he would know what kind of woman this is	20:33
	and he would know what to do with her."	20:36
	Jesus knows she is a notorious woman of the city,	20:41
	a sinner, and what does He do?	20:45
	He forgives, without her even asking	20:50
	or bothering to repent, or straighten up,	20:54
	He forgives.	20:58
	Because maybe real prophets, real prophets	21:02
	speak, not what we'd like them to speak,	21:05
	but they speak for God.	21:08
	Jesus speaks for a God whose quality is mercy.	21:11
	You heard the Psalm we sung today.	21:16
	Jesus speaks for a God who knows what to do with sinners.	21:20
	You heard the reading from Galatians today.	21:24
	We get saved, not because we're all perfect and got	21:27
	our lives all cleaned up, we're just saved not because	21:29
	of who we are, but because of who Jesus is, who God is.	21:33
	It would be less radical, less prophetic,	21:40
	less truthful for Jesus to say,	21:44
	to have looked upon this woman, and to say,	21:48
	"In the name of the righteous God, you can go to hell."	21:51
	Then it was for him to look upon her weeping	21:57
	and say, "You're sins are forgiven.	22:00
	You can go in peace."	22:04
	Jesus was a real prophet, and real prophets speak	22:10
	for God, a God whose quality is mercy.	22:17
	Jesus Christ came into the world to save who?	22:23
	Sinners.	22:26
	George W. Bush said last year,	22:29
	during the Presidential debates,	22:31
	that his favorite philosopher was Jesus.	22:33
	Though Mr. Bush's admiration for the philosophy	22:37
	of Jesus does not deter him from enthusiastically	22:40
	endorsing the execution of 152 fellow human beings,	22:43
	whose sins are many.	22:50
	Mr. Bush, Jesus is not a philosopher.	22:53
	He is a prophet.	22:58
	He tells us the truth about God.	23:01
	And sometimes, as in this story,	23:04
	the folk most offended by Jesus' prophecy	23:07
	are, like Simon, the most Biblically literate,	23:11
	the most religious among us.	23:15
	"Who is this who forgives sins?"	23:18
	There was this guy I knew in college,	23:24
	and he returned from a trip one Sunday evening, walked in.	23:25
	He was a campus activist.	23:31
	He was a crusader in college and the civil rights movement.	23:35
	Well one Sunday evening, he barges in my room	23:39
	and, puffing on a cigarette, he says,	23:41
	"Guess who I just sat next to on a flight	23:44
	from Washington, D.C.?"	23:48
	"Who?" I said.	23:51
	"Martin Luther King.	23:53
	There he was," he said, "in real life.	23:57
	I didn't talk to him at first on the flight,	24:00
	he seemed kind of tired.	24:01
	But before we landed I finally got up the courage	24:03
	to introduce myself and tell him that I was	24:06
	active in the movement, and,	24:09
	and then I said, 'Dr. King, maybe you	24:12
	could offer me some help, my father is in a little town	24:15
	in South Carolina, and he is so backward	24:19
	and he is so racist.	24:25
	He really doesn't like what I'm doing.	24:27
	He has some of the most negative, backward attitudes	24:30
	on the race situation you can imagine.	24:34
	We had an argument when I was home over Spring Break,	24:36
	and we got so mad with one another,	24:41
	he ordered me out of the house, and I slammed the door	24:43
	and I told him I will never set foot in this house again.	24:45
	I am ashamed that my own father	24:48
	has these hateful, racist attitudes.	24:51
	What can I do?'"	24:54
	He said, Dr. King looked around at me,	24:59
	and he grabbed hold of my arm,	25:01
	and he squeezed it, and he said, "You're a Christian.	25:04
	You got to love your father."	25:09
	And then he turned around and went to sleep	25:14
	for the rest of the flight.	25:16
	(congregation laughing)	25:17
	"If this Jesus were a real prophet..."	25:23
	Well...	25:28

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "A Real Prophet" (June 17, 2001)

Description:

Sermon start time: 02:05. Sermon end time: 25:33.
This sermon speaks about characteristics of being a prophet. The preacher argues that prophets love God's truth more than they crave popularity or power. They are not afraid to speak the truth, but they also know the depth of God’s forgiveness and mercy, so they can boldly speak truth with love. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “That night at the table, Jesus was busy redefining prophecy.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r42f7k53j

Date:

June 17, 2001

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Luke

Chapter and Verse:

Luke 7:36-8:3

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1072
ref10301_sx4
uachapelsermaud
duke:320546
dcrau001716
ark:/87924/r42f7k53j
1249e1f7-36ec-4dc1-a728-f42edfdeb589

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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

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CC BY-NC 4.0

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William H. Willimon - "A Real Prophet" (June 17, 2001)

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