William H. Willimon - "They're Drunk" (May 22, 1994)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
(organ music) | 0:00 | |
- | Good morning. | 2:19 |
Welcome to this celebration of Pentecost, | 2:21 | |
the Lord's gift of the spirit to the church | 2:24 | |
on this gorgeous Sunday in Duke Chapel. | 2:27 | |
We will be led today in the celebration of the Eucharist | 2:30 | |
and in preaching by our own Dean of the Chapel, | 2:34 | |
William Willimon. | 2:37 | |
We will be led in music by our summer choir | 2:39 | |
and by our tenor, Mr. William McCullough. | 2:43 | |
Those of you who are in town for the summer | 2:46 | |
and wish to participate in the summer choir | 2:49 | |
are invited to do so. | 2:51 | |
Immediately following the service today, | 2:54 | |
there will be a coffee on the lawn of the chapel. | 2:56 | |
Let us stand for our Litany of Praise. | 3:03 | |
Our help is in the name of the Lord who creates heaven | 3:11 | |
and earth. | 3:13 | |
(crowd chanting in unison) | 3:15 | |
He rides in the heavens and sends forth his mighty voice. | 3:21 | |
(crowd chanting in unison) | 3:26 | |
How wonderful is God in his holy places, the God of Israel, | 3:27 | |
giving strength and power to his people. | 3:31 | |
(crowd chanting in unison) | 3:34 | |
All who are led by the spirit of God are children of God. | 3:35 | |
Lord, send forth your spirit | 3:39 | |
and renew the face of the earth. | 3:41 | |
(crowd chanting in unison) | 3:44 | |
(organ playing) | 3:47 | |
(crowd singing in unison) | 4:32 | |
- | Please be seated. | 6:59 |
(page turning) | 7:04 | |
Let us pray together the prayer for illumination. | 7:09 | |
Open our hearts and minds, oh God. | 7:13 | |
By the power of your holy spirit, | 7:16 | |
so that as the word is read and proclaimed, | 7:19 | |
we might hear your word, | 7:23 | |
joy, | 7:25 | |
amen. | 7:28 | |
Our first lesson is taken from Saint Paul's | 7:31 | |
Epistle to the Romans. | 7:33 | |
The eighth chapter, verses 22 through 27. | 7:35 | |
We know that the whole creation | 7:42 | |
has been groaning in labor pains until now. | 7:44 | |
And not only the creation, but we ourselves. | 7:48 | |
We who have the first fruits of the spirit, | 7:52 | |
we grown inwardly while we wait for adoption, | 7:55 | |
the redemption of our bodies. | 7:59 | |
For in hope, we were saved. | 8:03 | |
Now, hope that is seen is not hope. | 8:06 | |
For who hopes for what is seen? | 8:10 | |
But if we hope for what we do not see, | 8:13 | |
we wait for it with patience. | 8:16 | |
Likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness, | 8:20 | |
for we do not know how to pray as we ought, | 8:25 | |
but that very spirit intercedes with sigh too deep for words | 8:28 | |
and God, who searches the heart, | 8:35 | |
knows what is the mind of the spirit | 8:39 | |
because the spirit intercedes for the saints. | 8:43 | |
According to the will of God. | 8:46 | |
This is the word of the Lord | 8:50 | |
Crowd | Thanks be to God. | 8:52 |
- | Our second lesson is taken from the Acts of the Apostles. | 9:00 |
The second chapter, | 9:04 | |
from the beginning through the 21st verse. | 9:06 | |
When the day of Pentecost had come, | 9:14 | |
they were all together in one place. | 9:17 | |
And suddenly from heaven there came | 9:20 | |
a sound like the rush of a violent wind | 9:23 | |
and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. | 9:26 | |
Divided tongues, as of fire, | 9:31 | |
appeared among them and a tongue rested on each of them. | 9:33 | |
All of them were filled with the holy spirit | 9:38 | |
and began to speak in other languages | 9:42 | |
as the spirit gave them ability. | 9:45 | |
Now there were devout Jews from every nation | 9:49 | |
under heaven living in Jerusalem and at this sound, | 9:51 | |
the crowd gathered and was bewildered | 9:56 | |
because they heard them speaking in their native languages. | 10:00 | |
Amazed and astonished, the people in the crowd asked, | 10:05 | |
"Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? | 10:10 | |
And how is it that we here, each of us, | 10:14 | |
in our own native language Parthians, Meads, Alemites, | 10:17 | |
and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, | 10:23 | |
Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, | 10:28 | |
Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene; | 10:32 | |
and visitors from Rome, both Jews and prosletites; | 10:37 | |
Cretans and Arabs - in our own languages we hear them | 10:42 | |
speaking about God's deeds of power." | 10:46 | |
All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, | 10:51 | |
"What does this mean? | 10:55 | |
But others sneered and said, | 10:57 | |
"They are filled with new wine." | 11:00 | |
But Peter, standing with the Eleven raised his voice | 11:04 | |
and addressed them. | 11:07 | |
"Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, | 11:09 | |
let this be known to you and listen to what I say. | 11:13 | |
Indeed these are not drunk as you suppose, | 11:18 | |
for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. | 11:22 | |
No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel." | 11:25 | |
In the last days it will be, God declares, | 11:31 | |
that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh | 11:34 | |
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, | 11:39 | |
and your young men shall see visions, | 11:43 | |
and your old men shall dream dreams. | 11:46 | |
Even upon my slaves, both men and women in those days, | 11:50 | |
I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. | 11:55 | |
And I will show portents in the heaven above | 12:00 | |
and signs on the earth below. | 12:03 | |
Blood and fire and smokey mist. | 12:05 | |
The sun shall be turned to darkness | 12:11 | |
and the moon to blood before the coming | 12:13 | |
of the Lord's great and glorious day. | 12:16 | |
Then everyone who calls | 12:20 | |
on the name of the Lord shall be saved. | 12:21 | |
This is the word of the Lord. | 12:26 | |
Crowd | Thanks be to God. | 12:29 |
- | A few years ago a friend of mine, | 12:39 |
United Methodist Minister, graduate of Duke, | 12:42 | |
a friend of mine and I were discussing | 12:48 | |
the then current neo-charismatic movement | 12:49 | |
that was sweeping through the churches. | 12:52 | |
And my friend who is quite an intellectual, | 12:56 | |
we had done graduate work together at Emory, | 13:00 | |
I wanted to know, I wanted him to sort of | 13:02 | |
help me think through this strange phenomenon. | 13:05 | |
People speaking in tongues, members of my church | 13:09 | |
going to faith healings, other... | 13:12 | |
...weird behavior. | 13:15 | |
And as I was talking about the charismatic movement | 13:18 | |
and some of my wonderings about it, | 13:22 | |
I looked over at my friend and he had this sort of | 13:25 | |
sheepish look on his face. | 13:28 | |
And I said, "Wait a minute, | 13:31 | |
you haven't spoken in tongues, have you?" | 13:34 | |
And then he told me. | 13:39 | |
It had been a difficult week, | 13:42 | |
he hadn't been able to get to writing his sermon. | 13:43 | |
He got up on Saturday morning, he went down to the church, | 13:46 | |
he sat down at his desk, determined not to leave | 13:48 | |
until he had finished writing that sermon. | 13:51 | |
He said, "I was sitting there, | 13:54 | |
and all of a sudden it was as if something seized me | 13:56 | |
and my head fell back and I, | 14:00 | |
my tongue started moving | 14:03 | |
and there were these strange guttural sounds | 14:04 | |
emanating from my throat. | 14:06 | |
And then it was over and I felt a great sense of release | 14:11 | |
and relief. | 14:17 | |
I realized that I had experienced glossolalia, | 14:19 | |
speaking in tongues." | 14:23 | |
And I said to him, | 14:27 | |
"Promise me you'll never tell anybody this story. | 14:30 | |
You're a Duke graduate, I mean, | 14:34 | |
what would people think?" | 14:35 | |
(crowd lightly laughing) | 14:37 | |
Now I don't know whether or not today's lesson from Acts 2 | 14:39 | |
is talking about glossolalia, speaking in tongues. | 14:44 | |
There's some doubt Luke even knew what that was. | 14:48 | |
Paul talks about speaking in tongues. | 14:51 | |
Says he's done it on many different occasions. | 14:53 | |
Yet I do know that Acts 2, this account of what happened | 14:58 | |
at Pentecost, is describing some weird, wonderful goings on. | 15:03 | |
On the day of Pentecost, Jews from every nation | 15:10 | |
were gathered together in one place | 15:14 | |
and the spirit descended and they all began to speak | 15:17 | |
in strange tongues and they all began to understand | 15:21 | |
in strange ways. | 15:26 | |
And upon hearing the Pentecostal commotion, | 15:28 | |
the crowd out on the street said, "They're drunk. | 15:31 | |
Jesus' people are drunk." | 15:36 | |
Peter came out and addressed the crowd, | 15:40 | |
giving the dubious defense, "We're not drunk! | 15:42 | |
It's only 10 o'clock in the morning!" | 15:46 | |
Now what do we make of this strange story? | 15:51 | |
Here on this day of Pentecost, the birthday of the church? | 15:55 | |
Tom Long who preaches often and well from this pulpit, | 16:02 | |
tells about when we was a young pastor | 16:08 | |
he was conducting a Confirmation class at his church. | 16:10 | |
And he had just three little girls in his Confirmation class | 16:13 | |
and one afternoon he was telling them about | 16:18 | |
the church year and its various parts | 16:21 | |
and he came to Pentecost. | 16:24 | |
But the little girls had never heard of Pentecost | 16:26 | |
so he told them well, "At Pentecost, | 16:28 | |
that was the day the church was gathered together | 16:30 | |
in one place, people from all over the world, | 16:32 | |
the spirit descended | 16:35 | |
and suddenly they could hear each other, | 16:36 | |
their divisions were healed, | 16:38 | |
they could understand each other, | 16:40 | |
tongues like a fire descended upon each person." | 16:43 | |
Two of the little girls | 16:48 | |
received this information impassively | 16:49 | |
but one of the little girls sat there, | 16:53 | |
her eyes got bigger and bigger, her mouth dropped open, | 16:55 | |
and finally she said, "Gosh Reverend Long, | 16:59 | |
I guess my family was absent on that Sunday." | 17:01 | |
And maybe, if we're honest as that little girl, | 17:08 | |
when we hear this story, we have to say, | 17:11 | |
"Gosh, I guess I didn't make it to church that day." | 17:13 | |
It's tough to read ourselves into this strange story | 17:17 | |
of Pentecost. | 17:22 | |
Why is that? | 17:26 | |
One Sunday a few years ago, | 17:30 | |
I got kind of carried away in the sermon, | 17:32 | |
I raised my voice a couple of times, | 17:35 | |
I think I gestured broadly with my arm. | 17:36 | |
Someone down on the sixth row, | 17:39 | |
obviously who had never been here before, | 17:41 | |
got carried away. | 17:43 | |
At the end of the sermon, he stood up and he shouted out, | 17:44 | |
"Amen, right on!" | 17:46 | |
(crowd laughing) | 17:48 | |
I looked for the ushers to remove this person. | 17:50 | |
You read Acts 2 and it's difficult | 17:58 | |
to read yourself into the story, | 18:00 | |
where people get the gift of God's spirit | 18:04 | |
and they get out of control. | 18:07 | |
This same spirit which empowered Jesus to do good. | 18:09 | |
This spirit now settles upon the church | 18:14 | |
and it transforms these strangers into a community. | 18:16 | |
Releasing new powers within them, powers to hear, | 18:21 | |
powers to speak, | 18:25 | |
healing their old racial, nationalistic divisions. | 18:26 | |
Folk watching them emerged from church that Sunday, | 18:32 | |
said to one another, "Look at those Christians. | 18:35 | |
They're drunk." | 18:40 | |
Alas, when we emerge from church on Sunday, | 18:42 | |
you're on your way out to the parking lot, | 18:44 | |
when's the last time anyone, you heard anyone say | 18:46 | |
on the way out, "Look at those Christians. | 18:48 | |
They're in there, they're drunk again." | 18:50 | |
More than likely what they say is, | 18:52 | |
"Look at them, they look dead again." | 18:54 | |
I tell you, there's, we have difficulty with this story | 19:02 | |
and it's not just because we happen to be | 19:04 | |
kind of modern people. | 19:06 | |
It's because there's something sort of threatening | 19:09 | |
about this story. | 19:11 | |
We have to tell ourselves, | 19:14 | |
we don't live in such an age, an age of the spirit. | 19:15 | |
A new book, The Churching of America, | 19:21 | |
published by Rutgers Press by Fink and Stark, | 19:25 | |
two sociologists, tells the story | 19:29 | |
of the steady decline of mainline Protestantism. | 19:32 | |
Mainline Protestantism that's us. | 19:36 | |
Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Baptist. | 19:39 | |
Protestantism in America. | 19:43 | |
And these sociologists say that from what they can see, | 19:47 | |
religious vitality is related to three factors. | 19:51 | |
And those factors are | 19:55 | |
cost, | 19:58 | |
stigma, | 20:00 | |
and sacrifice. | 20:01 | |
Those churches who demand a great cost from their members. | 20:03 | |
Those churches that lay upon the backs of their members | 20:10 | |
some social stigma. | 20:14 | |
Those churches that ask for more sacrifice do better | 20:16 | |
than those churches who ask for less. | 20:20 | |
There has been a vast decline in American religious life, | 20:26 | |
and yet, | 20:31 | |
studies show that North Americans are just as religious | 20:33 | |
as they've ever been. | 20:38 | |
There basically has been no decline in the number | 20:40 | |
of people who practice their Christian faith | 20:42 | |
over the past 50 years in North America. | 20:46 | |
The decline has been exclusively | 20:50 | |
within mainline Protestantism. | 20:51 | |
And yet there has been a rapid upsurge | 20:55 | |
in the younger churches. | 20:57 | |
The Church of God, the Assemblies of God, etc. | 20:58 | |
In other words, these sociologists indicate | 21:03 | |
that with respectability and affluence | 21:05 | |
and education and a rise of a professional clergy, | 21:08 | |
always comes decline. | 21:12 | |
And that's tough to think about these matters around here. | 21:17 | |
Maybe because if these sociologists are right, | 21:23 | |
we are the instigators of mainline religious decline. | 21:26 | |
And so, when we're faced with a story | 21:31 | |
of Pentecost in Acts 2, | 21:34 | |
or our neighborhood Assemblies of God congregation, | 21:36 | |
we don't think holy spirit. | 21:40 | |
We're conditioned to think that maybe | 21:42 | |
these people have got some kind of psychological problem. | 21:45 | |
Maybe they're the victims of some sort | 21:48 | |
of cultural educational backwardness. | 21:52 | |
Freud characterized religion as neurosis. | 21:56 | |
He calls religion an intoxicant. | 22:01 | |
Childishness to be overcome. | 22:05 | |
And most of us, when we hear a story like Pentecost, | 22:08 | |
we are all Freudians. | 22:12 | |
I was teaching a class in the Divinity School, | 22:17 | |
Field Education Seminar and that's when the students come in | 22:19 | |
and they present episodes from their ministry | 22:22 | |
and we look at them and we discuss them. | 22:25 | |
And one of the students presented a case study in which, | 22:28 | |
when he was a student pastor, a woman comes to him | 22:32 | |
and says to the student pastor, | 22:34 | |
"What does the Methodist church believe | 22:38 | |
about speaking in tongues?" | 22:40 | |
The pastor's first response was, | 22:44 | |
"Oh my God don't tell me you've gotten into that." | 22:46 | |
And she said, "Well I don't know that I've gotten into it | 22:50 | |
but in my Monday morning prayer and Bible study group, | 22:53 | |
I had this very strange experience | 22:57 | |
and after it's over someone says well dear | 22:59 | |
that's speaking in tongues. | 23:00 | |
You've got the gift of tongues. | 23:02 | |
And I just wondered what we believe about it." | 23:04 | |
To this, the pastor responded, | 23:07 | |
"I wonder if you're still not in some grief | 23:10 | |
over the death of your daughter." | 23:12 | |
And she said, "Well certainly I'm in grief | 23:15 | |
over the death of my daughter. | 23:18 | |
Do you think this is related to that?" | 23:19 | |
Then the young pastor says, | 23:22 | |
"Have you thought about seeking professional help?" | 23:23 | |
And she said, "Well yeah that's sort of why I came to you, | 23:28 | |
the pastor." | 23:31 | |
(crowd laughing) | 23:32 | |
You see, there can be only one explanation | 23:37 | |
in our reductionistic world view for such strange phenomena. | 23:41 | |
This woman must be nuts. | 23:47 | |
The young pastor never assumed that maybe | 23:52 | |
what was going on here was a reworking of Acts 2. | 23:55 | |
There was only one explanation in his urbane, educated, | 24:01 | |
theologically sophisticated mind. | 24:05 | |
Lady, you must be drunk. | 24:08 | |
In 1927, Freud spoke of religion as some sort of psychosis. | 24:12 | |
Religion is most active among people | 24:17 | |
who are mentally unbalanced and yet, | 24:20 | |
since 1927 there have been numerous studies | 24:24 | |
and none of them show that there is the slightest bit | 24:27 | |
of evidence to back up Freud's claim. | 24:29 | |
And every study I know about, psychological studies | 24:32 | |
of deeply religious people find a positive | 24:35 | |
rather than a negative relationship between | 24:39 | |
strong religious vitality and emotional health. | 24:42 | |
Marx dismissed religion as the opiate of the masses. | 24:48 | |
The poor man's cheap drug to take away | 24:53 | |
some of the pain from daily existence. | 24:56 | |
And yet as we watched the revolution that occurred | 25:00 | |
in Eastern Europe, much of it directly tied to the churches, | 25:02 | |
we now know what poor old Marx did not. | 25:09 | |
Religion is not the opiate of the masses, | 25:12 | |
it is the amphetamine of the poor. | 25:16 | |
I'm saying there is no justification | 25:21 | |
for our modern prejudice to relegate the born again | 25:23 | |
or the spiritually engaged to the ranks | 25:27 | |
of the mentally unbalanced. | 25:30 | |
In fact, a recent study of American college students showed | 25:32 | |
that there is a positive correlation between saying | 25:36 | |
you're born again or that you identify yourself | 25:40 | |
as a conservative evangelical | 25:43 | |
and academic achievement in college. | 25:46 | |
See we told ourselves that we were becoming modern | 25:52 | |
and as we became modern, | 25:55 | |
the world was going to get less religious, | 25:56 | |
we were gonna all end up | 25:59 | |
looking like England or something. | 26:00 | |
Unfortunately there is no evidence for this | 26:04 | |
in North America. | 26:06 | |
As Richard Douhouse says, | 26:08 | |
"North America more closely resembles India or | 26:09 | |
Africa in our religiosity than England | 26:12 | |
or Sweden or Northern Europe." | 26:16 | |
It's only people who work around Universities | 26:20 | |
and people who write for newspapers | 26:23 | |
who persist in the outmoded notion | 26:27 | |
that somehow religious faith is an outmoded vestige | 26:29 | |
that we have put behind us. | 26:33 | |
William James characterized true religion as white hot heat. | 26:37 | |
And it does seem that a lot of people | 26:45 | |
are getting heated up over faith. | 26:47 | |
And yet all evidence to the contrary, | 26:53 | |
don't you find it interesting we continue | 26:55 | |
to sin against Pentecost. | 26:57 | |
We continue to attempt reductionistically | 27:01 | |
to explain away this disruptive outburst, | 27:04 | |
this weird intrusion of the spirit. | 27:07 | |
And I think you know why. | 27:12 | |
Acts 2 is not a promise. | 27:16 | |
For us it is a threat. | 27:20 | |
The story of Pentecost is a threat | 27:23 | |
that one Sunday we might all gather here | 27:26 | |
in our bolted-down pews and our smug reasonableness | 27:28 | |
and our bourgeoisie respectability | 27:36 | |
only to be jumped from behind by the spirit. | 27:40 | |
To be grabbed by our collective collars, | 27:43 | |
shaken up and thrown into confusion. | 27:46 | |
Intoxicated. | 27:50 | |
And this is not a suggestion many of us welcome. | 27:54 | |
Because most of us come here to be confirmed | 27:58 | |
in what we already know. | 28:00 | |
Most of us come here to be sure | 28:02 | |
that the ruts we've chosen in life, | 28:04 | |
are good ruts for us to be in. | 28:06 | |
Not, we do not come here to be dislodged. | 28:10 | |
Led by the spirit into some terra incognita. | 28:16 | |
That we do not know. | 28:21 | |
And so I say this story to us as a warning, a threat, | 28:25 | |
you be real careful here. | 28:28 | |
As you come to the table today with hands open, | 28:32 | |
maybe even your mind open. | 28:36 | |
Be careful. | 28:39 | |
Because scripture says the wind, | 28:43 | |
the holy wind blows where it will. | 28:45 | |
God's spirit will not be tamed or house-broken by us. | 28:49 | |
Not by our liturgy, my sermons, this church, | 28:54 | |
modern policing of what's possible and impossible. | 28:59 | |
This spirit will not be tamed by us. | 29:03 | |
Your soul might catch fire. | 29:06 | |
You might break free, even, especially here. | 29:08 | |
Now I would hate to see nice, | 29:15 | |
respectable people like you with mortgages, | 29:18 | |
I would hate to see you go out of here drunk. | 29:22 | |
No I wouldn't. | 29:27 | |
(crowd murmuring) | 29:29 | |
- | The Lord be with you. | 29:43 |
Crowd | And also with you. | 29:45 |
- | Let us pray, let us stand for our Pentecost litany. | 29:47 |
When the day of Pentecost had come | 29:58 | |
they were all together in one place | 29:59 | |
and all of the many foreigners heard the witnesses | 30:01 | |
speaking in their own tongue. | 30:04 | |
(crowd speaking in unison) | 30:07 | |
Speak in the language of our need. | 30:13 | |
Let us hear how our deepest hungers, desires, | 30:15 | |
and aspirations can be fulfilled by your goodness | 30:19 | |
and in your service. | 30:22 | |
(crowd speaking in unison) | 30:24 | |
Speak in the language of our fear. | 30:29 | |
Let us hear how our worries about the future | 30:31 | |
and about each other and about ourselves can find rest | 30:34 | |
in your providential care. | 30:39 | |
(crowd speaking in unison) | 30:41 | |
Speak in the language of our guilt. | 30:46 | |
Let us hear how our confessed shame for wrong things done | 30:49 | |
and for good things undone is covered by your forgiveness. | 30:54 | |
(crowd speaking in unison) | 30:59 | |
Speak in the language of our gratitude. | 31:04 | |
Let us hear how our honest thanks relate us, | 31:07 | |
not only to those with whom we live | 31:10 | |
but also to you the Lord and giver of life. | 31:12 | |
(crowd speaking in unison) | 31:16 | |
Speak to us in the language of joy. | 31:21 | |
Let us hear how our gladness | 31:24 | |
and our delight not only brighten this world | 31:26 | |
but honor you who made our world. | 31:29 | |
(crowd speaking in unison) | 31:32 | |
Speak to us in the language of hope. | 31:37 | |
Let us hear how our yearning and our expectations | 31:40 | |
are not just wishful thinking but responses to your promise. | 31:43 | |
(crowd speaking in unison) | 31:49 | |
Now let us greet one another with words | 32:07 | |
and signs of God's peace. | 32:09 | |
(crowd murmuring) | 32:14 | |
Would you please be seated? | 32:32 | |
Our Lord said it is more blessed to give than to receive. | 32:37 | |
Let us therefore worship God | 32:40 | |
with our tithes and our offerings. | 32:42 | |
(organ playing) | 32:49 | |
(man singing) | 35:14 | |
(choir singing) | 36:01 | |
(organ playing) | 40:54 | |
(crowd singing) | 41:40 | |
William | Let us give thanks to God. | 42:37 |
The Lord be with you. | 42:39 | |
Crowd | And also with you. | 42:41 |
William | Lift up your hearts. | 42:42 |
Crowd | We lift them up to the Lord. | 42:44 |
William | Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. | 42:46 |
Crowd | It is right to give him thanks and praise. | 42:49 |
- | All praise and thanks are yours, life giving Lord. | 42:52 |
In the beginning your spirit moved over | 42:56 | |
the face of the waters, you breathed into us | 42:58 | |
the breath of life. | 43:01 | |
When we resisted and grieved | 43:02 | |
your spirit came upon the waters | 43:04 | |
and upon us, upon prophets, upon teachers, | 43:08 | |
anointing all to speak your word in truth. | 43:13 | |
In the folds of time you gave us your son Jesus. | 43:17 | |
At his baptism in the Jordan | 43:20 | |
your spirit descended upon him | 43:22 | |
and announced him as your beloved son. | 43:24 | |
With your spirit upon him he turned away | 43:26 | |
the temptation of sin and proclaimed justice | 43:29 | |
to all peoples brought good news to the poor | 43:32 | |
and released the captives. | 43:35 | |
Freedom to the oppressed. | 43:37 | |
By the baptism, his death and resurrection | 43:39 | |
you gave birth to your church. | 43:42 | |
At his ascension, you exulted him to sit at your right hand | 43:44 | |
where according to his promise, | 43:48 | |
he is with us always baptizing us | 43:50 | |
with the holy spirit and with fire. | 43:53 | |
As on the day of Pentecost, | 43:55 | |
we pray with your people on earth | 43:58 | |
and all the company of heaven. | 44:03 | |
Praising your name and joining their unending hymn. | 44:05 | |
(organ playing) | 44:09 | |
(crowd singing in unison) | 44:18 | |
On the night he offered himself up for us, he took bread, | 44:56 | |
he gave thanks to you, broke the bread, | 44:58 | |
and gave it to his disciples and said, "Take, eat, | 45:01 | |
this is my body given for you. | 45:05 | |
Do this in remembrance of me." | 45:07 | |
And when the supper was over, he took the cup, | 45:10 | |
gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples and said, | 45:12 | |
"Drink from this, all of you. | 45:15 | |
For this is the blood of my new covenant | 45:18 | |
poured out for you and many for the forgiveness of sins. | 45:20 | |
Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me." | 45:23 | |
And so in remembrance of these, | 45:27 | |
your mighty acts in Jesus Christ, | 45:29 | |
we offer ourselves in praise | 45:31 | |
and thanksgiving as a holy living sacrifice | 45:33 | |
in union with Christ offering | 45:37 | |
for us as we proclaim the mystery of faith. | 45:38 | |
(organ playing) | 45:43 | |
(crowd singing in unison) | 45:52 | |
On the day that you raised him up from the dead, | 46:05 | |
Jesus was recognized by his disciples | 46:07 | |
in the breaking of the bread | 46:10 | |
and in the power of your spirit. | 46:11 | |
Therefore in remembrance of all your mighty acts | 46:13 | |
in Jesus Christ, we ask you to accept this, | 46:16 | |
our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving which we offer | 46:19 | |
in union with Christ's sacrifice for us. | 46:23 | |
As a living and holy surrender of ourselves. | 46:26 | |
Send the power of your holy spirit on us and on these gifts. | 46:29 | |
That in the breaking of this bread | 46:33 | |
and the drinking of this wine | 46:34 | |
we may know the presence of the living Christ | 46:35 | |
and be renewed in his likeness. | 46:38 | |
All honor and glory is yours almighty father | 46:43 | |
now and forever. | 46:48 | |
(organ playing) | 46:50 | |
(crowd singing in unison) | 47:00 | |
And now with the confidence of children, | 47:14 | |
we pray as Christ has taught us. | 47:16 | |
(crowd chanting in unison) | 47:18 | |
Our Father, who art in heaven, | 47:19 | |
hallowed be thy name. | 47:21 | |
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. | 47:23 | |
On earth as it is in heaven. | 47:26 | |
Give us this day, our daily bread | 47:28 | |
and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those | 47:31 | |
who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation | 47:34 | |
but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, | 47:39 | |
and the power and the glory forever. | 47:42 | |
Amen. | 47:45 | |
- | When we break the bread, | 47:47 |
is it not a means of sharing in the body of Christ? | 47:49 | |
When we give thanks over the cup, | 47:53 | |
is not a means of sharing in the blood of Christ? | 47:55 | |
Come to the Lord's table. | 47:59 | |
(shuffling noises) | 48:06 | |
(footsteps) | 48:10 | |
(organ playing) | 48:40 | |
(choir singing) | 49:05 | |
- | Please stand for the Benediction. | 56:51 |
Now by the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, | 56:57 | |
the love of God and the fellowship of the holy spirit | 57:00 | |
be with you now and always. | 57:02 | |
(organ playing) | 57:08 | |
(choir singing) | 57:12 | |
(crowd singing in unison) | 57:42 |