William H. Willimon - "Sex, Power, and Politics" (September 18, 1994)

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	♪ Spread my wings and shine ♪	0:00
	♪ Shine ♪	0:05
	♪ Shine ♪	0:08
	♪ Spread my wings and fly ♪	0:09
	♪ Fly ♪	0:16
	(choir vocalizing)	0:23
Man	I need to take a moment.	0:28
	We need to go through this once, okay?	0:30
	From the top.	0:32
	(soft organ music)	0:39
	(choir vocalizing)	0:47
	(slow organ music)	1:16
-	Good morning!	3:10
	Welcome to the service of worship at Duke Chapel.	3:11
	This evening at five, the congregation at Duke Chapel	3:15
	will have their anniversary service.	3:18
	Members of the congregation	3:21
	are wearing blue ribbons this morning	3:22
	in honor of their anniversary.	3:25
	And we thank this group for all	3:29
	that they made into the ministry of Duke Chapel.	3:31
	I called your attention to the other announcements	3:34
	in the bulletin.	3:37
	Now, let us stand for the greeting.	3:38
	The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.	3:43
Congregation	And also with you.	3:46
-	The risen Christ is with us.	3:47
Congregation	Praise the Lord!	3:50
	(slow organ music)	3:52
	(congregation singing)	4:36
	(slow organ music)	6:59
	(congregation singing)	9:02
-	If we claim we have no sin,	9:52
	we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us,	9:55
	but if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just	9:58
	will forgive our sins	10:02
	and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.	10:04
	Let us confess our sins against God and our neighbor	10:07
	as we join in the prayer of confession found on page 890	10:10
	in the hymn book.	10:14
	Let us pray.	10:16
All	Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned	10:19
	against you in thought, word, and deed.	10:23
	By what we have done and by what we have left undone.	10:27
	We have not loved you with our whole heart.	10:32
	We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.	10:35
	We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.	10:39
	For the sake of your son Jesus Christ,	10:43
	have mercy on us and forgive us,	10:46
	that we may delight in your will,	10:50
	and walk in your ways,	10:52
	to the glory of your name.	10:54
	Amen.	10:57
-	The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.	11:03
	I declare to you in the name of Jesus Christ,	11:07
	we are forgiven.	11:10
	May the God of mercy who forgives us all our sins	11:12
	strengthen us in all goodness,	11:15
	and by the power of the Holy Spirit,	11:18
	keep us in eternal life.	11:20
	Amen.	11:22
	You may be seated.	11:24
-	Let us pray together the Prayer for Illumination.	11:34
All	Open our hearts and minds, O God.	11:38
	By the power of your Holy Spirit,	11:41
	so that as the word is read and proclaimed,	11:44
	we may hear your message with joyness stay.	11:48
	Amen.	11:52
-	The Gospel lesson is taken from the Gospel	11:56
	according to Mark chapter nine, verses 30 to 37.	11:58
	Jesus and his disciples went on from the place	12:05
	where he healed the boy with an unclean spirit,	12:08
	and passed through Galilee.	12:11
	He did not want anyone to know it,	12:14
	for he was teaching his disciples saying to them,	12:16
	"The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands,	12:21
	"and they will kill him.	12:25
	"And three days after being killed, he will rise again."	12:27
	But they did not understand what he was saying	12:33
	and were afraid to ask him.	12:36
	Then they came to Capernaum and when he was in the house,	12:39
	he asked them, "What were you arguing about on the way?"	12:44
	But they were silent,	12:49
	for on the way they had argued with one another	12:51
	who was the greatest.	12:54
	He sat down, called the 12, and said to them,	12:57
	"Whoever wants to be first must be last of all	13:02
	"and servant of all."	13:06
	Then he took a little child and put it among them.	13:10
	And taking it in his arms, he said to them,	13:14
	"Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me,	13:18
	"and whoever welcomes we welcomes not me,	13:24
	"but the one who sent me."	13:28
	This is the Word of the Lord.	13:31
All	Thanks be to God.	13:34
-	In Iris Murdoch's novel, "A Severed Head"	13:45
	we meet a smug, self-possessed intellectual,	13:51
	Martin Lynch-Gibbon	13:55
	who brags about his succession of wives and lovers.	13:58
	At the beginning of the novel, it is obvious	14:04
	that Gibbon is superior intellectually.	14:06
	To these women whom he uses for his pleasure	14:11
	and the inflation of his academic ego	14:15
	and his libido.	14:19
	He says, "In my own marriage, I early established	14:22
	"myself as the one who took, rather than gave."	14:26
	The novel is a sordid series of affairs	14:32
	and crists, Lynch Gibbon is so smug,	14:35
	so detached from the lives of his lovers,	14:40
	so witty and wise about women.	14:44
	Then, things began to unravel.	14:48
	His mistress, Georgie, attempts suicide after her abortion.	14:53
	He finds another of his mistresses in bed	14:59
	with his best friend, her brother.	15:01
	And then his wife, Antonio, delivers the final blow.	15:04
	All these years, he thought that he was being unfaithful	15:10
	to her, when she was carrying on a raging affair	15:14
	with his own brother.	15:19
	The woman that he said he considered too unimaginative	15:22
	for real sin,	15:26
	has shown Lynch-Gibbon what a simple, tiring fool	15:29
	he has been.	15:35
	Like a head severed from its body,	15:37
	my interpretation of Murdoch's title,	15:40
	Lynch-Gibbon, in the end, knows nothing except	15:44
	that in the end, he knows that he has never really known.	15:49
	A Severed Head is a very Christian novel.	15:56
	A story of how a proud, conceited, academic person	16:00
	is cast down into child-like contrition.	16:03
	As Jesus said, "We cannot enter this Kingdom	16:10
	"unless we come as a little child."	16:15
	The real linchpin of the novel occurs	16:21
	when Lynch-Gibbon is told a story,	16:25
	and the account of his life that he told himself	16:29
	is assaulted by another story told by the women.	16:33
	And he sees his own story as but a lie,	16:39
	a self-deception.	16:43
	It is a moment found in all,	16:47
	most of great literature.	16:51
	When we have the story that we have told ourselves,	16:54
	about ourselves, assaulted by a story	16:58
	from without.	17:02
	In fact, if you wanna think what sin is,	17:05
	sin has to do with the clash of stories.	17:08
	Sin is not something that you did in the backseat	17:16
	of a Volvo in high school,	17:19
	sin, particularly Jewish, Christian sin,	17:22
	is a rift between us and God.	17:28
	Therefore, a favorite prophetic way of speaking of sin	17:33
	is by calling it adultery.	17:37
	In order to indicate that in our sin, something intimate	17:40
	between us and God has been violated.	17:44
	Adultery.	17:49
	Now, adultery, among politicians, has been much	17:52
	on our minds these days.	17:54
	And, thus I take you to the Bible's favorite story	17:57
	of political sex, the story of David and Bathsheba.	18:01
	Here it is in second Samuel.	18:08
	In the spring of the year, the time when kings go to battle,	18:11
	David sent Joab and all Israel with him	18:16
	and they ravaged the Ammonites,	18:20
	but David remained behind at Jerusalem.	18:24
	Late one afternoon,	18:28
	when David rose from his couch	18:30
	and was walking about the roof of the palace,	18:33
	he saw a woman bathing.	18:36
	The woman was very beautiful.	18:38
	David sent someone to inquire about the woman.	18:41
	This is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah the Hittite.	18:44
	So, David sent messengers to get her	18:51
	and she came to him and he lay with her,	18:54
	then she returned to her house.	18:58
	The woman conceived and she sent and told David,	19:01
	"I am pregnant."	19:05
	Now, I'm sorry, those of you who voted for King David,	19:10
	believing him to be big on family values.	19:13
	I realize that you have just now learned more	19:18
	about your role model King David	19:20
	than you probably wanted to know.	19:22
	But David is now at mid-life.	19:25
	He is at mid-life crisis.	19:27
	Once he led Israel's armies in battle,	19:30
	but now, David leaves the spring campaign	19:34
	to the younger generals and spends long afternoons	19:37
	napping on his couch after a two-martini lunch.	19:42
	He's at mid-life, he's at midday.	19:47
	So, Dante begins his Inferno,	19:52
	"In the middle of life's journey,	19:57
	"I found myself in a dark wood	19:59
	"where the way is lost."	20:03
	Now some of David's old decisiveness	20:09
	that we learned to love in the earlier stories of David.	20:12
	Some of this can still be mustered.	20:15
	Seeing the body of lovely Bathsheba,	20:17
	he rises to the occasion, he saw, he set, he took, he lay.	20:19
	You notice there is no long, tortured wrestling	20:25
	of conscience	20:27
	'cause David is the height, he's at the height	20:29
	of his autonomy and his royal power.	20:31
	There's no brooding,	20:35
	there's no wishy-washy indecisiveness or caution for David,	20:36
	there is only action.	20:41
	Being king, David can do as he pleases.	20:42
	When at last, the woman finally speaks her simple words,	20:48
	"I am pregnant."	20:54
	Shatter the king's world,	20:56
	royal strategies now come into play	20:59
	as they attempt to salvage the situation.	21:02
	But already, you can start to feel the control	21:05
	over his life is slipping from David's fingers.	21:09
	He hatches a crude stratagem to extricate himself	21:13
	by duping poor, dumb Uriah,	21:16
	husband of Bathsheba.	21:20
	David sent word to Joab,	21:23
	"Send me Uriah the Hittite."	21:26
	David invited Uriah to eat and drink and made him drunk.	21:28
	But in the evening, Uriah did not go down to his house	21:33
	and to his wife.	21:36
	So, in the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab,	21:40
	"Set Uriah at the forefront of the hardest fighting	21:44
	"and then draw back from him so that he may die."	21:48
	When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead,	21:56
	she made lamentation for him,	22:01
	and when her mourning was over,	22:04
	David brought her to his house and she became his wife	22:06
	and bore him a son.	22:09
	End of story.	22:14
	Now, those of you who may have never been close	22:17
	to important, powerful people are perhaps troubled	22:19
	that David is not as great a king as we first led to believe	22:23
	in the earlier chapters of second Samuel.	22:26
	We've come a long way, haven't we?	22:30
	Since those idealistic days	22:32
	when little David stood up to great, big Goliath.	22:34
	However, I remind you that people in power don't play	22:39
	by our rules.	22:42
	Sometimes, a king has got to do what needs to be done	22:45
	to maintain power, order, national security.	22:49
	Politics is not for those with weak stomachs.	22:53
	The king disposes of Uriah	22:58
	and life in the palace goes on.	23:01
	And all might have ended well for David	23:04
	were it not for the insertion of another narrative	23:07
	into this rather conventional story	23:10
	of royal power and its nasty methods.	23:14
	There is a counter-story.	23:19
	But the thing that David did displeased the Lord.	23:23
	David is certainly not displeased,	23:30
	and yet there remained one more story to be told.	23:33
	We've watched David and Bathsheba and poor Uriah	23:38
	act their parts, but there is one more actor	23:42
	yet to be heard from in this drama	23:45
	of sexual politics and death.	23:49
	Here it is.	23:53
	The thing that David had done displeased the Lord	23:55
	and the Lord sent prophet Nathan to David.	23:58
	He came to him and he said, "Let me tell you a story.	24:01
	"There were two men in a certain city, one rich	24:07
	"and the other poor.	24:10
	"The rich man had many flocks but a poor man had nothing	24:13
	"but one little ewe lamb which he had bought.	24:16
	"And it grew up with his children.	24:20
	"It used to eat from his meager fare	24:22
	"and drink from his cup, and lie at his bosom.	24:24
	"And it was just like a daughter to him.	24:27
	"Now, there came a traveler to the rich man,	24:30
	"and the rich man was loath to take one of his own flock	24:33
	"to prepare for the wayfarer.	24:37
	"So, he took the poor man's lamb	24:39
	"and he prepared that for his guest."	24:42
	End of story.	24:46
	Then David's anger was greatly kindled against the man.	24:50
	He said to Nathan, "As the Lord lives,	24:53
	"the man who has done this deserves to die!"	24:56
	David's story told him	25:04
	that he was the only actor of consequence.	25:06
	He is king,	25:11
	but then out of nowhere appears the prophet Nathan,	25:13
	the prophetic intruder who does the talking	25:18
	and his talking is in parable.	25:21
	By a little exercise in Comparative Lit	25:25
	we see Nathan entraps the king.	25:28
	In Nathan's parable, note that the rich man is sketched	25:32
	in a non-detail, flat way.	25:36
	He is rich, he's got everything he wants,	25:39
	he can do what he wants.	25:41
	Period.	25:43
	The poor man in the prophet's tale receives	25:45
	much more detailed, interesting description.	25:48
	In the story that David is living,	25:52
	the king is the recipient	25:54
	of the greatest narrative interests.	25:57
	We are told what the king is thinking,	26:00
	and what the king is doing, and little nobodies	26:01
	like Bathsheba or Uriah are barely sketched,	26:04
	but in comparison in the prophet's story,	26:07
	the tables have turned and our attentions are drawn away	26:12
	from the rich man toward the poor man	26:18
	and his little ewe lamb.	26:21
	In the prophetic counter-narrative, in other words,	26:24
	we notice people and economic circumstances	26:27
	which official royal stories would have us ignore.	26:32
	The rich man being powerful, decisive	26:37
	has freedom to act.	26:40
	Like King David took Bathsheba, the rich man sees the lamb,	26:43
	he takes, he consumes,	26:47
	but this parable is more than our artistic means	26:50
	of ensnaring the king and his own, blind arrogance.	26:53
	Rather, in juxtaposing the two stories,	26:57
	that is the king's story with the prophet's story	27:00
	second Samuel portrays a clash of narratives,	27:05
	a collision of the royal story with God's story.	27:08
	Herein is sin.	27:14
	Nathan said to David,	27:19
	"You are the man."	27:22
	Thus says the Lord, God of Israel,	27:25
	"I anointed you over Israel,	27:27
	"I rescued you from the hand of Saul,	27:28
	"I gave you your master's house,	27:30
	"and if that had been too little,	27:32
	"I would have added much more.	27:33
	"Why do you despise the Word of the Lord	27:36
	"to do what is evil?	27:38
	"You have struck down Uriah the Hittite	27:39
	"and have taken his wife.	27:42
	"Now, therefore, the sword shall not depart from your house,	27:44
	"you have despised me."	27:48
	Thus says the Lord,	27:50
	"I will raise up trouble against you from within	27:51
	"your own house."	27:54
	Gift is the main topic put on the table	27:59
	when it is God's turn to talk.	28:02
	The speech of God is rehearsal of graciousness in the past.	28:05
	All that David has has come not as his savvy, political	28:09
	achievement, but as gift.	28:13
	What David thought as his autonomous achievement	28:16
	is gift.	28:20
	God asserts, "I anointed you, I rescued you,	28:23
	"I gave you."	28:26
	David has moved from smiting and taking to killing.	28:29
	Serious sin.	28:34
	But as God's speech shows	28:37
	the thing that has enraged God	28:41
	about this whole situation is the way David	28:44
	has abused the gifts.	28:47
	While David thought he was seducing Bathsheba,	28:52
	David got seduced by the royal lie	28:56
	that he is smart and powerful.	29:01
	He can do as he pleases.	29:04
	He's accountable to nobody.	29:07
	But the prophet's counter-story	29:10
	reminds him that even kings are subject	29:13
	to the righteousness of God.	29:16
	And by the way, would you note there is no attempt here	29:19
	to sort out the political from the personal,	29:22
	the subjective from the social.	29:26
	There's none of this liberal,	29:29
	well, who cares how he behaves in the bedroom?	29:31
	As long as he votes right on the floor of the senate.	29:33
	Here sin is of one piece.	29:37
	So much so that somehow, a connection is being made	29:41
	by David's lust,	29:44
	tied to his politics.	29:48
	His use of Bathsheba	29:51
	is somehow linked up with his use of Israel.	29:53
	Sin in the bedroom is not severed	29:59
	from sin in the boardroom.	30:02
	Or in the courtroom.	30:05
	Or in the classroom.	30:08
	The story continues.	30:13
	David said to Nathan,	30:15
	"I have sinned against the Lord."	30:18
	Nathan says to David,	30:23
	"The Lord has now put away your sin.	30:26
	"You shall not die."	30:29
	Nevertheless, because of this deed	30:31
	with which you utterly scorned the Lord,	30:34
	the child that you bore shall die.	30:37
	When David finally says, "I have sinned,"	30:43
	truth arises not from some realization	30:48
	of some self-evident universal law, Immanuel Kant,	30:52
	nor from a possibly neurotic exercise	30:57
	and self-scrutiny, Sigmund Freud.	31:01
	I have sinned here arises	31:05
	out of a clash of stories,	31:08
	a prophetically-induced awareness of a horrible disjuncture	31:10
	between David's account of his life as king	31:15
	and the prophet's account of David's life as gift.	31:20
	And the story is not over.	31:26
	Having been caught red-handed, trapped,	31:28
	one might think this would be the end for David.	31:30
	Two things impress us,	31:34
	David's swift confession, "I have sinned,"	31:37
	followed by the prophet's equally swift pronouncement,	31:41
	"The Lord has put away your sin."	31:47
	And there's something in us that might like	31:51
	to write off David as some moral failure.	31:53
	Something in us might like to see this politician	31:57
	twist in the wind just a little bit.	32:00
	But the prophet's counter-story has evoked a new David,	32:03
	or maybe it's the old David in the best sense of the word.	32:07
	A David who is, yet, even in mid-life,	32:12
	at the peak of his political power,	32:17
	even yet he is able to submit,	32:19
	submit and admit to the truth	32:24
	of God's account of things.	32:27
	See, the story that we live reads autonomy,	32:31
	or liberation, or freedom, or fulfillment of desire.	32:34
	God's story always reads gift,	32:41
	covenant, responsibility.	32:45
	Maybe David's sin is his futile, petty attempt	32:51
	to live as if he had no story laid upon him,	32:55
	as if he was not already spoken for by God.	33:00
	Yet thank God, God's story has the power to evoke	33:06
	that which it demands.	33:09
	David is able to name his sin,	33:11
	having been given the narrative means rightly to discern	33:14
	what is going on in his life.	33:18
	David's response has not evoked principally	33:20
	by Nathan's "You are the man!"	33:23
	but rather by God's, "I gave, I gave."	33:26
	Having been seduced by the false story of royal power,	33:33
	David graciously re-submits to God's truthful account	33:37
	of the way things stand between us,	33:41
	and a God who manages to be both truthful and gracious,	33:44
	a God whose truthfulness is grace.	33:49
	Oh there's still a high price to pay,	33:56
	consequences David's family shall pay dearly.	33:59
	'Cause there's a high cost to doing business	34:04
	with stories other than truthful ones.	34:06
	And yet, the good news is the story goes on.	34:11
	It continues.	34:15
	It continues all the way down until there's a son of David.	34:17
	The story of a gracious God who is always willing	34:23
	to intrude, to assert,	34:27
	and ultimately, to forgive.	34:30
	And I have told you this story today.	34:35
	Because although maybe	34:39
	you haven't committed adultery,	34:43
	and although maybe you're not in politics,	34:46
	you are, let's have no faults, modesty here,	34:50
	you are gifted.	34:55
	And maybe you don't write psalms	34:58
	in your spare time like David,	35:00
	but you've got talent, you've got gifts,	35:03
	it's why you're here.	35:06
	And I tell you the empire is forever attempting	35:09
	to seduce you	35:12
	into the notion that you're here because you deserve it.	35:15
	Because of your autonomous possession of high intelligence	35:19
	or nerve or good looks,	35:23
	The empire always wants to tell you that you stand alone,	35:30
	that you write your own story,	35:34
	without any outside help,	35:37
	which means that you, like King David, are susceptible.	35:42
	On the right afternoon,	35:47
	after a good lunch and a couple of beers,	35:50
	to great sin.	35:54
	Which means that you, like David,	35:59
	when exposed to the glare of the right bible story,	36:03
	on the right Sunday morning,	36:08
	at the right meal,	36:11
	you are subject to great forgiveness	36:15
	and amazing grace.	36:21
Woman	The Lord be with you.	36:37
Congregation	And also with you.	36:39
-	Let us pray.	36:41
	Creator God, we thank you that you have made this world	36:50
	and everything in it and called it good.	36:56
	Everything we are, everything we have,	37:02
	everything we've done	37:08
	is possible only through the gifts you have given to us.	37:10
	Make us ever mindful that you are God	37:17
	and we're your people.	37:21
	Lord, in your mercy,	37:24
All	Hear our prayer.	37:25
-	Covenant God, from the beginning of time,	37:29
	you have desired to be in relationship with us,	37:33
	though we have often turned away to seek our own paths,	37:37
	you have sought us again and again,	37:42
	forgiving our infidelity	37:45
	and restoring us to your family.	37:48
	Keep us ever close to you,	37:52
	Lord in your mercy,	37:55
All	Hear our prayer.	37:57
-	Protect us from the seductions of the world	38:00
	and the temptation to elevate ourselves	38:04
	and our own importance.	38:06
	Remind us that our story is part of your larger story	38:09
	and that each of us has been given a role to play,	38:15
	Lord in your mercy,	38:20
All	Hear our prayer.	38:22
-	Make us mindful of those around us who we often overlook.	38:25
	Help us recognize the times and the ways	38:31
	that we take advantage of others	38:35
	or use them for our own ends,	38:37
	Lord in your mercy,	38:40
All	Hear our prayer.	38:43
-	Broaden our vision that we might see the world	38:47
	as you see it, a world filled with your children,	38:50
	endowed with endless gifts and resources,	38:55
	acting on behalf of you and service to one another,	38:59
	Lord in your mercy,	39:04
All	Hear our prayer.	39:06
-	Finally, as we come to receive communion,	39:10
	remind us that this is your ultimate gift to us,	39:13
	the gift of yourself with nothing held back.	39:17
	Give us the grace to receive the gift of your body and blood	39:22
	that we might abide in you with nothing held back,	39:26
	through Jesus Christ, Our Lord,	39:31
	Amen.	39:34
	As those who shared the gift of renewed life,	39:38
	let us stand and exchange signs of God's peace	39:42
	with one another.	39:45
	(congregation murmuring)	39:46
	You may be seated.	40:12
	Yesterday, about 70 Duke students took part	40:19
	in a cleaning project to salvage sweet potatoes	40:22
	from the fields for the poor.	40:26
	This is one of many projects	40:29
	that the chapel offering supports	40:31
	throughout the year, all but one Sunday a month,	40:34
	all of the offering is given to make a difference	40:37
	in our community.	40:40
	Let us give generously of ourselves and our gifts.	40:41
	(soft organ music)	40:48
	(choir singing)	42:04
	(gentle organ music)	46:57
	(crowd singing)	47:46
-	Let us give thanks to God.	48:47
	The Lord be with you.	48:49
Congregation	And also with you.	48:51
-	Lift up your hearts.	48:52
Congregation	We lift them up to the Lord.	48:54
-	Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God.	48:56
Congregation	It is right and just	48:58
	to give him thanks and praise.	49:00
-	It is right, a good and joyful thing,	49:01
	always and everywhere to give thanks.	49:03
	Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth,	49:06
	you brought all things into being	49:09
	and called them good.	49:11
	Even when we turned away and our love failed,	49:14
	your love remained steadfast.	49:18
	you delivered us from slavery,	49:21
	and made us your covenant people.	49:24
	you led Moses to your mountain to give us your teachings.	49:26
	When we forsook your covenant, you sent your prophets	49:32
	to remind us of the truth, the promise of the covenant.	49:36
	When you gave your only son, Jesus Christ,	49:41
	to save us from our sin,	49:44
	he suffered and died on the cross for our sin,	49:47
	and you raised him to life,	49:52
	presented him a life to the apostles	49:54
	and exalted him at your right hand	49:56
	that we might be raised as people of your new covenant,	49:59
	from sin and death to everlasting life.	50:03
	Now with your people in heaven and on earth,	50:06
	we join in all the company of heaven	50:11
	and praising your name,	50:16
	and we join their unending hymn singing.	50:18
	(organ music)	50:21
	(congregation singing)	50:31
	Truly holy are you and blessed is your son, Jesus Christ.	51:10
	On the night his disciples betrayed him,	51:14
	he took bread, he gave thanks to you,	51:18
	he broke the bread, gave it to his disciples and said,	51:21
	"Take, eat, this is my body given for you,	51:24
	"do this in remembrance of me."	51:27
	When the supper was over, he took the cup,	51:30
	gave thanks to you, gave it to his disciples and said,	51:33
	"Drink from this, all of you,	51:36
	"for this is my blood of the new covenant,	51:38
	"poured out for you and many for the forgiveness of sins,	51:40
	"do this as often as you drink it,	51:46
	"in remembrance of me."	51:48
	And so in remembrance of these,	51:50
	your mighty acts and Jesus Christ,	51:52
	we offer ourselves and praise and thanksgiving	51:55
	as a holy and living sacrifice,	51:57
	in union with Christ offering for us,	52:00
	as we proclaim the mystery of faith.	52:03
	(organ music)	52:06
	(congregation singing)	52:11
	It's in the power of your Holy Spirit on us	52:24
	and on these gifts, but in the breaking of the bread	52:26
	and the drinking of this wine,	52:29
	we may now anew the presence of the living Christ,	52:30
	be cleansed by his blood and look forward	52:34
	to his final victory, all honor and glory is yours,	52:37
	Almighty God, now and forever.	52:41
	(organ music)	52:44
	(congregation singing)	52:49
	As those who are forgiven,	53:03
	we are bold to pray.	53:04
All	Our Father, who art in heaven,	53:06
	hallowed be thy name.	53:08
	thy kingdom come,	53:10
	thy will be done,	53:12
	on earth as it is in heaven.	53:13
	Give us this day our daily bread	53:15
	and forgive us our trespasses,	53:18
	as we forgive those who trespass against us.	53:20
	And lead us not into temptation	53:24
	but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom	53:26
	and the power and the glory, forever.	53:30
	Amen.	53:33
-	'Cause there is one loaf, we, many as we are,	53:35
	become one for there's one loaf which we all partake.	53:37
	When we break the bread, is it not a means of sharing	53:43
	in the body of Christ?	53:45
	When we give thanks over the cup, is it not a means	53:48
	of sharing in the blood of Christ?	53:51
	Come to the table.	53:56
	(soft organ music)	54:03
	(soft footsteps)	54:11
	(soft footsteps)	54:14
	(soft footsteps)	54:17
	(soft footsteps)	54:19
	(congregation singing)	54:39
	(gentle organ music)	58:28
	Let us stand for the prayer.	1:05:21
	Lord, you renew us at your table with the bread of life.	1:05:27
	May this food strengthen us in love	1:05:31
	and help us to serve you and one another.	1:05:34
	We ask in the name of Jesus, our Lord.	1:05:37
	Amen.	1:05:42
	(organ music)	1:05:45
	(congregation singing)	1:06:30
	And now may the grace of Christ	1:09:53
	go with you and be with you always.	1:09:56
	(congregation singing)	1:10:03

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Sex, Power, and Politics" (September 18, 1994)

Description:

Sermon start time: 13:45. Sermon end time: 36:25.
The Bible always uses the analogy of adultery to describe Israel’s idolatry; adultery indicates that in our sin something intimate between us and God has been violated. Like King David, who committed adultery because he had been corrupted by his royal power and forgot God’s covenant, sex, power, and politics can be corrupted by sin and yield idolatry in any Christian life. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “While David thought he was seducing Bathsheba, David got seduced by the royal lie that he is smart and powerful. He can do as he pleases. He’s accountable to nobody. But the prophet’s counter-story reminds him that even kings are subject to the righteousness of God.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4z892w1w

Date:

September 18, 1994

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

Chapter and Verse:

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 VHS-0390
ref9471_o8v
uachapelsermaud
duke:321345
dcrmv001372
ark:/87924/r4z892w1w
c1cad79a-b0dc-4826-a158-726a213a3ce5

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings

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Language:

English

Location:

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.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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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William H. Willimon - "Sex, Power, and Politics" (September 18, 1994)

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