William H. Willimon - "Dying, We Live" (May 28, 1989)

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	It	0:02
	was a familiar	0:03
	story. A nice person like me, with	0:06
	much work to do, trapped	0:09
	on a four hour flight from Denver to	0:12
	Durham, seated next to	0:16
	someone who was determined to set me	0:18
	straight before we	0:21
	landed. Where does American Airlines get these people,	0:22
	I wondered.	0:27
	Hardly had our wheels left the ground in Denver and	0:28
	she informed me, proudly, that she was returning	0:33
	from a wellness	0:37
	convention. "You dig, you	0:40
	dig wells?" I asked cutely.	0:43
	Like many of my attempts at humor, that was a	0:46
	big mistake.	0:50
	I was informed that she was totally in touch with her	0:52
	body, that she had, this year alone, added at least four years to her	0:55
	life since getting off red meat and on to lentil casseroles.	0:59
	When the steward brought us our in-flight meal, she rejected both the chicken almandine and	1:04
	the beef burgundy. "What	1:10
	they do to chickens is positively obscene," she	1:11
	said to me. And then she asked for bottled water and when none	1:16
	could be found she started glaring at me as	1:21
	I ate my meal as if I were someone sniffing cocaine. "You	1:25
	really ought to do something about your weight," she advised.	1:31
	"I can tell by the gray in your hair you're weak in B- compounds."	1:37
	Why is God, or at	1:41
	least American Airlines, punishing me, I groaned.	1:45
	But more than that, I couldn't help wondering, whatever	1:50
	happened to	1:56
	the old fashioned way of achieving	1:57
	immortality. The Greeks, when they wanted to live on and	2:01
	on, had children. The Egyptians had embalmers.	2:06
	But we	2:10
	have our oat bran and yogurt	2:13
	and wheat germ and	2:17
	aerobics. This person with her evangelistic wellness had just	2:19
	taken six years off of my life.	2:23
	Now, without question, we can all agree	2:29
	that there is much to be said for good health.	2:32
	But I tell you, it has gone quite beyond	2:36
	that. We're not talking about	2:39
	simply looking fit, or feeling a bit better.	2:42
	We're talking immortality here,	2:46
	people. The impression is given that if we	2:49
	just avoid tap	2:53
	water, nuclear power stations, chemically dependent physicians, and	2:54
	with a little help from an artificial organ or two, dying	2:59
	is absolutely pointless.	3:05
	What's needed is to reduce living to zero risk.	3:07
	Marvin Hage has called my attention to an April 1977 issue of "Science."	3:14
	It seems that there is a whole	3:20
	new field of science called risk-assessment analysis.	3:23
	An article by Richard Watson and EAC Crouch offers a	3:28
	comparative listing of the various risk that one is apt to	3:34
	be exposed to in life.	3:39
	For instance, people in police	3:41
	work have a 2 x 10 to the 4th power annual	3:43
	risk of death or (AR). Before	3:47
	you drop off the police force, though, it turns out	3:52
	that driving a motor vehicle anywhere has exactly the same	3:55
	AR. I was pleased to see that being a frequent flyer is safer five	4:00
	to the tenth of a fifth power AR than riding in an	4:06
	automobile, even when you factor in the risk of getting a seat next to	4:11
	a person who's into	4:15
	wellness. Surprise to me, switching from	4:17
	ordinary tap water, six times ten to the seventh power AR,	4:22
	switching from ordinary city water to	4:29
	the contaminated well water of Silicon Valley that has the E.P.A.	4:31
	so upset actually lowers my risk factor by a	4:36
	factor of three hundred.	4:41
	It turns out that the potassium in my body gives me fifteen hundred times	4:43
	the	4:48
	radiation of the atmosphere within twenty miles of a nuclear power	4:49
	plant. But don't stay home because it turns out that household	4:53
	hazards are about fifty percent as likely to kill you as	4:59
	the AR of driving your car on the Durham freeway.	5:03
	Food, any kind of	5:09
	food, especially aflatoxin-laced peanut butter, turns out to	5:11
	be hazardous. Why? Well, apparently, theorizes	5:16
	Dr Bruce Ames, plants are deadly because they learn through evolution that	5:21
	chemical warfare is a great way to fight off	5:27
	fungi and insects and animal predators, unfortunately, this includes human	5:30
	predators. In other words, the salad bar can kill you.	5:36
	Now how did we get here? How did we get here with our risk assessment analysis and	5:41
	our	5:47
	wellness? Well, I think it can be argued that victory	5:48
	over mortality	5:53
	is	5:56
	the goal of modern science, begenning as early	5:57
	as Bacon and Decartes. Bacon called for,	6:02
	quote, "The conquest of nature and the relief of man's estate."	6:06
	When one reads Bacon on science, it becomes evident that the relief he	6:13
	sought was chiefly relief from	6:19
	death. Bacon, in fact, may have been immortality research's	6:23
	first victim. He apparently died while conducting freezing experiments on	6:27
	a chicken.	6:32
	Descartes called for modern philosophy to reject	6:35
	the abstract scpeculation that had characterized earlier philosophy	6:39
	in favor of a new practical	6:43
	philosophy, by which we would, in the words of Descartes "render	6:47
	ourselves as masters and possessors of nature because	6:51
	this project brings about the preservation of	6:56
	health, which is without doubt the chief blessing and the	7:00
	foundation of all other blessings in	7:04
	life." In other words, Descartes said, when you've got your	7:07
	health, you've got everything that's worth having in	7:11
	life. Behind this great project of science begun	7:15
	in Bacon and Descartes was the	7:19
	belief that we actually held in our little human	7:21
	hands the conquering of mortality.	7:28
	That life can be lived without	7:32
	risk, without limits through	7:35
	solely human	7:40
	effort. Death is pointless, a hindrance, to	7:42
	the reaching of our full human potential.	7:47
	Now,	7:53
	this is quite different for us, particularly us Christians. In the Middle	7:53
	Ages, there was a vast literature called the "ars moriendi," the "art	7:58
	of dying" literature. In	8:03
	fact, it was alleged that this was a major purpose of the Christian faith, to	8:05
	teach you how to die well.	8:10
	John Wesley boasted of his Methodists, "Our	8:14
	people know how to die well."	8:17
	But now, you see, we'd like not to die	8:22
	at all.	8:25
	Duke historian David Steinmetz notes that in the	8:28
	Middle Ages, cancer was the death of choice.	8:32
	Cancer, unlike a sword through the skull or a heart attack, gave	8:37
	one the opportunity to die well, to get your	8:42
	affairs in order to pay off old debts, to bless the	8:47
	grandchildren. But now, it's interesting that most of us pray	8:52
	for a quick, instant death. In other words so	8:56
	we can die without knowing that we're doing it, because, it turns out,	9:00
	that we modern people have absolutely nothing to do with our	9:05
	dying. Of course, statistical chances are that most of us will	9:11
	not die quickly.	9:15
	And so we at least hope for a drugged death so	9:17
	we won't have to come to terms with a hard cold fact	9:21
	that this is, despite oat bran and	9:26
	jogging, it. The most enduring task of any religion, I think, is	9:30
	to teach us to die well.	9:35
	St. Paul might say that it's the whole point of the Christian religion.	9:39
	Because if I knew how to die, I	9:46
	might know how to live.	9:49
	A Princeton student, being	9:54
	interviewed by a	9:56
	reporter after the	9:59
	Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, was asked about	10:01
	the prospect of sending American troops there. "There	10:05
	is nothing worth dying for," he said, which	10:09
	means, of course, the facts being what they are, that one day, he shall have the unpleasant	10:15
	task of dying	10:20
	for nothing. For the cruel truth is that	10:23
	despite our wellness and risk assessment analysis and the good works of Ralph Nader, nobody	10:27
	has come up with a surefire way to make me live	10:33
	forever. I will, you will	10:37
	die. So we might as well get on with the only really pressing business there	10:42
	is in such terminal circumstances: figuring	10:47
	out how one might	10:53
	die well. If religion can help with that, it's	10:55
	ultimately interesting; if it can't, it's as bland and boring	11:00
	as a bowl of wet	11:05
	cold oat bran.	11:07
	Now, for those who expect to be saved by Jesus rather	11:10
	than by eating	11:14
	well, risk avoidance cannot be the name of the game.	11:16
	I mean what would you calculate to be the AR, the	11:21
	annual risk, of a Saint	11:26
	Paul or a Teresa of Calcutta or	11:28
	a Martin Luther King. No,	11:32
	the story by which they	11:35
	lived, and which we are called to live by and die	11:38
	by, is one of risk confronted,	11:42
	death embraced. Jesus calls us to walk	11:45
	a narrow way,	11:49
	to take up a cross daily, and that's	11:50
	terribly risky business.	11:55
	Ask that bright company of martyr, martyrs, who stare down at us from the	11:57
	Duke chapel windows, those who quite recklessly parted with goods, and	12:02
	security, and then life itself, preferring	12:08
	to be faithful in	12:12
	death, rather than	12:14
	safe in life. But, of course, it's	12:16
	also terribly	12:21
	adventuresome and terribly	12:23
	invigorating. We are, in a world with nothing	12:25
	better to do than cling to	12:29
	life, we are, as his disciples, given	12:33
	something interesting to do with our dying, and	12:37
	therefore with our living.	12:41
	Today's epistle comes toward the end of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians.	12:46
	Paul speaks, here at the end of his letter and perhaps at the end of his own	12:53
	life, of death and hope	12:58
	for	13:02
	life after death. Some in Corinth, it turns out, were	13:02
	saying that there is no resurrection of the	13:07
	dead, Death, in other words, has no meaning because	13:11
	it is a complete dead end. As they say, when you're	13:15
	dead, you're dead. That's it, C'est finis.	13:19
	Paul says that if that's so, if	13:24
	Christ is not raised	13:27
	and we are not raised, then nothing	13:31
	makes a lot of difference anyway.	13:36
	Sure, 1989 Durham is okay and my being 43	13:40
	this year isn't the total end of the world, but	13:45
	Paul would argue	13:49
	that if this is	13:51
	it, then this	13:54
	is the end of the	13:59
	road. Or as Paul put it, "if	14:01
	for this life only we have hoped in Christ, then	14:05
	we of all people are most to be	14:10
	pitied." It's	14:14
	all in vain.	14:17
	Now note that Paul does not argue	14:20
	for some immortality of the	14:23
	soul, the return of the robin in the spring, the springing	14:27
	up of the crocus in April, or some notion that there is	14:31
	some immortal spark in us that just goes on and on despite our	14:36
	death.	14:40
	Rather, he argues for Christ's defeat of death.	14:43
	The Christian faith sserts that, in	14:49
	Christ, God has	14:53
	triumphed. But if death is not defeated, we	14:56
	are to be pitied, because our Christian claims of the triumph	15:00
	of God over all affairs of	15:05
	life are but hollow	15:08
	assertion. If this Savior cannot do something about our dying,	15:11
	Paul would say, he really isn't much of a	15:17
	Savior. Our claim	15:20
	Is that Christ has beaten the great enemy.	15:24
	In Christ, therefore, our lives begin to make a	15:30
	difference. Because we are free to live as those who share in	15:34
	his victory over death, which means today that we need	15:39
	not anxiously cling to our lives as if the only	15:44
	important aspect in	15:49
	life were this	15:52
	life. Our lives have significance	15:54
	not in their duration or	15:58
	longevity, but in their fidelity	16:02
	to the one who has taken the sting out	16:06
	of death.	16:11
	For instance, Christian nonviolence is based not on the assumption	16:14
	that if we are nice to people,	16:19
	people,	16:23
	even our enemies, will turn and be nice to us.	16:24
	But rather it is based on the conviction that no	16:29
	one, not even our	16:33
	enemies, can determine the end of our	16:35
	lives. 45 years	16:41
	ago, last month, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was	16:43
	hung by the Nazis.	16:47
	Bonhoeffer had lived a charmed and aristocratic existence up to that	16:51
	point. How had life brought him here to Flossenburg	16:55
	prison, condemned as a traitor, hung?	17:01
	Of course, when Hitler came to power in Germany,	17:07
	Bonhoeffer could have done as many of his country	17:10
	men and tried to work out some compromise, tried to prolong	17:14
	his life, tried to give significance to his life as	17:19
	a	17:23
	collaborator. He chose another	17:24
	way out of his Christian	17:27
	conviction. This enabled Pastor Bonhoeffer to walk to his	17:29
	death with head held high, commenting	17:34
	to another prisoner as he was taken from his cell,	17:37
	"This is the end.	17:42
	But for me, it is yet the beginning with God."	17:45
	My point is that we are at our worst when	17:53
	we vainly	17:56
	act as if it were up to us alone to make	17:58
	sense out of our lives, to give our brief	18:02
	days significance by our	18:07
	efforts, because fearful, frightened, anxiety-ridden	18:10
	creatures are victims of death rather than	18:14
	its victors. With our pills, and our	18:19
	yogurt, and our fears of mortality, we haven't conquered	18:22
	death, death has conquered us.	18:29
	But as Paul says,	18:34
	"thanks be to God who	18:36
	gives us victory	18:38
	through our Lord Jesus Christ."	18:40
	As Christians,	18:45
	we don't have to be hung up on death,	18:47
	anxiously managing or guarding our lives, as	18:52
	if death were the worst that life could do to us.	18:56
	The worst that life could do to us is	19:01
	to render us unfaithful to Christ,	19:04
	to put our lust for control,	19:08
	our lives about our true human condition, our	19:11
	anxious desire for	19:17
	self-preservation, before our desire to	19:20
	be faithful	19:23
	discipless,	19:26
	to base our lives, either upon our achievement or	19:27
	our	19:32
	delusions, rather than upon his victory.	19:33
	And so Paul says to	19:39
	the congregation at Corinth, "Therefore	19:41
	beloved brothers and sisters, be	19:44
	steadfast, be immovable,	19:50
	always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing	19:53
	what the world does not	19:58
	know, knowing that in the Lord,	20:00
	your labor, your life, is	20:04
	not in vain. Amen."	20:10

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Dying, We Live" (May 28, 1989)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:02. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 20:17.
People have been seeking immortality throughout history. Contemporary culture and science offer an illusion that we can control the risk of death and live without limits. While everybody dies in the end, the question is not how to avoid death but how to die well. The greatest threat of death is not death itself, but leading us to lose our faith in God and focus our lives on this life only. The Christian way of dealing with the threat of death is by confronting it and embracing it. Christians are supposed to share Jesus’ victory over the Cross and live a faithful life even unto death. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4ws8j22k

Date:

May 28, 1989

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Ordinary Time

Biblical Book:

1 Corinthians

Chapter and Verse:

1 Corinthians 15:51-58

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0436
ref8626_x5u
uachapelsermaud
duke:320424
dcrau001365
ark:/87924/r4ws8j22k
0a9344e2-56eb-45a9-ba3f-4196edae0710

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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Language:

English

Location:

United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

Format:

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 - "Dying, We Live" (May 28, 1989)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Dying, We Live" (May 28, 1989)

2. William H. Willimon - "Dying, We Live" (May 28, 1989)

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William H. Willimon - "Dying, We Live" (May 28, 1989)

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