William H. Willimon - "Commanded to Love" (May 4, 1997)

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-	The great Christian theologian	0:18
	Reinhold Niebuhr once warned us preachers.	0:22
	He said, you may be able to attain	0:28
	in your congregation certain minimum standards of morality	0:33
	through the language of command but not much.	0:40
	Filling the air with should, and ought and must	0:48
	doesn't get very far, no.	0:51
	The truly great moral motivation, said Nieburh,	0:55
	depends not upon push but upon the gentle pull.	1:00
	You cannot compel people toward morality,	1:08
	Niebuhr said, they must be enticed.	1:12
	And the great Christian philosopher Soren Kierkegaard	1:17
	seemed to agree when he said to us preachers,	1:22
	you cannot speak directly to your congregations	1:28
	for direct speech only builds up people's defenses.	1:33
	No, you have to go in, as it were,	1:37
	through the back door, indirectly, subtly.	1:39
	That is the highest form	1:45
	of Christian communication, indirect discourse.	1:46
	And yet there are moments when Jesus,	1:55
	who spent a lot of his communication doing it indirectly.	2:03
	There are times when even Jesus	2:10
	spoke with disarming directness.	2:13
	It seems to me that our gospel lesson for this	2:19
	the 6th Sunday of Easter is one of those occasions.	2:22
	Jesus, speaking to his people says,	2:27
	"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you.	2:31
	"Abide in my love.	2:35
	"If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love	2:38
	"just as I have kept my father's commandments	2:41
	"and abide in his love.	2:44
	"I've said these things to you	2:46
	"so that my joy may be in you.	2:48
	"And that your joy may be complete.	2:51
	"This is my command.	2:54
	"That you love one another as I have loved you.	2:57
	"No one has greater love than this	3:02
	"to lay down one's life for one's friends.	3:04
	"You are my friends if you do what I command you.	3:08
	"I do not call you servants any longer	3:13
	"because the servant does not know what the master is doing	3:15
	"but I've called you friends because I've made known to you	3:18
	"everything that I have heard from my father.	3:21
	"You did not choose me, I chose you.	3:25
	"And I appointed you to go bare fruit, fruit that will last,	3:30
	"so that the Father will give you	3:34
	"whatever you ask him in my name.	3:35
	"I am giving you these commands	3:39
	"so that you may love one another."	3:43
	This is the word of the Lord.	3:48
-	Thanks be to God.	3:51
-	A reporter was interviewing an old man,	3:56
	a grandfather, his grandson the day earlier	3:59
	had been murdered in a robbery of the family grocery store.	4:03
	The old man was obviously in intense grief.	4:09
	And the reporter asked the grandfather,	4:14
	what would you like to see done to the killers of your son?	4:21
	What would help you in your sense of justice?	4:27
	Would you like revenge?	4:31
	And the old man answered, no.	4:36
	And the reporter said, well it's true we don't yet	4:39
	know who the killers of your grandson were.	4:45
	And the old man said, no, it's not that.	4:49
	It's that I'm a Christian and I have to love.	4:51
	Now you know that sometimes Jesus	5:02
	makes hints or suggestions.	5:06
	You know that Jesus' primary mode of teaching	5:11
	was through narrative, through indirect story.	5:15
	We would come to Jesus and we would ask him	5:19
	a perfectly straight forward direct question like,	5:20
	what is the kingdom of God like?	5:24
	And you know usually Jesus	5:26
	never responds with a direct answer.	5:27
	He'll tell a little story.	5:30
	Oh the Kingdom of God, it's like a man that had two sons	5:33
	and the younger of the son said to the father,	5:37
	you know, indirect, subtle.	5:39
	But in today's gospel the case is different.	5:45
	Here, Jesus commands to love.	5:50
	Oh, I know that much of the time when Jesus speaks,	5:57
	his words, they're obtuse.	6:00
	They're difficult to understand.	6:06
	You need someone like me to explain them to you.	6:09
	Someone who's spent a lifetime, you know,	6:14
	learning the Greek, and learning Near Eastern culture	6:15
	and helping to unpack these subtle words.	6:20
	But this morning the case is different.	6:29
	Here, Jesus commands to love.	6:31
	I know that contemporary life can be complicated.	6:39
	It's hard to know what the Christian thing	6:44
	to do is in every circumstance.	6:46
	They're always, even among sincere Christians,	6:50
	they're invariably a variety of opinions	6:53
	about what ought to be done but here Jesus simply commands.	6:56
	He commands us to love one another.	7:06
	Now to be a Christian, a follower of Jesus,	7:13
	means that there are some things	7:18
	which are just not optional.	7:21
	If you're a member of the Sierra Club	7:26
	you can't be someone who believes	7:29
	in occasionally setting a forest fire.	7:30
	On the other hand, if you're a Boy Scout,	7:35
	you have to be someone willing to build a campfire.	7:38
	These things are just not optional.	7:42
	It goes with the territory.	7:45
	A while back we were having a discussion	7:50
	here in the chapel basement about volunteerism at Duke.	7:52
	And we were discussing possible motivations	7:56
	for people to volunteer.	7:59
	And people said, our students have a desire to pay back	8:02
	something into the community.	8:08
	Our students realize that Durham	8:10
	is a place with lots of needs	8:12
	and through their volunteer work	8:14
	they can make things go better in Durham.	8:16
	And I remember, we came along to the Rabbi,	8:19
	Joe Blair, and Rabbi said,	8:21
	"Jews don't have a motivation for volunteerism.	8:26
	"All we have is an obligation.	8:32
	"A Jew is obligated to perform	8:35
	"works of love and charity to others.	8:40
	"It's not optional."	8:46
	And maybe, likewise, a disciple of Jesus	8:50
	is someone who is required in every situation of life	8:53
	as best God gives us the ability to respond	8:58
	to that situation in the name of Jesus,	9:01
	as Jesus would respond.	9:05
	Now there may be certain responses,	9:08
	which in the world's eyes make sense,	9:11
	or which can be justified by reference to,	9:15
	well look, everyone else is doing it	9:19
	or I am just one person, what could I do anyway,	9:21
	those sorts of rational.	9:25
	But Christians are those who, through baptism,	9:27
	have signed on, have publicly committed themselves	9:32
	to obey Jesus and in today's gospel, Jesus commands to love.	9:36
	I expect when you were growing up	9:47
	your mother said to you, my mother certainly said to me,	9:49
	things like, now, if you will be nice to other people,	9:54
	other people will be nice to you.	10:00
	That's an ethic called utilitarianism.	10:03
	If you do certain things,	10:08
	certain things will be done to you.	10:09
	You do this, you'll get this.	10:12
	That is one ethical point of view.	10:14
	You do good things in order to win friends	10:19
	and influences people, in order for life to go better,	10:21
	in order for Durham to be a better place in which to live.	10:24
	Christians are not utilitarians.	10:30
	We don't know if when we love other people	10:34
	they might love us back.	10:37
	We don't know if these actions	10:38
	will make Durham a better place to live or not.	10:41
	We do certain things because it's commanded.	10:45
	Jesus commands us to love.	10:50
	And I know that it's not always easy to know	10:55
	what the loving thing to do in a certain situation may be.	10:57
	Sometimes the love we're called to exercise	11:02
	is a kind of tough love as we sometimes say.	11:04
	Sometimes when you love somebody	11:09
	and you call them to account for their behavior,	11:11
	'cause you gotta love somebody	11:14
	to care enough about them to call them to account.	11:16
	Sometimes that hurts the other person.	11:20
	Sometimes they take it wrong.	11:23
	And yet, we're commanded to love.	11:26
	And as your preacher, I got to admit,	11:36
	I don't resonate to scripture like this.	11:40
	Those of you who have heard me before	11:44
	you know I like a kind of, I like a story I can work with	11:46
	and I can tell other stories	11:51
	and I can kind of do like Kierkegaard urged us to do.	11:52
	I can come in the back door,	11:56
	I don't have to come straight on to you	11:57
	and get all your defenses up	11:59
	and all your sensitivities and everything.	12:01
	I can come in, you know, in the back door	12:03
	and by the time the sermon ends I've had you.	12:06
	And you don't know you've been had	12:09
	until it's too late to do anything about it.	12:11
	I like that kind of approach.	12:12
	But today the case is different.	12:18
	Jesus simply commands us to love.	12:21
	He reminds us.	12:27
	Your discipleship wasn't your idea, it was my idea.	12:30
	You didn't choose me, I chose you.	12:34
	I died for you and love and now, I command you to love.	12:37
	Erich Honecker was the despised,	12:45
	ruthless ruler of East Germany.	12:49
	Destroying his country through his communism,	12:53
	resulting in the deaths of many.	12:57
	When Honecker was finally deposed,	13:00
	he was booted out of his luxury villa.	13:03
	He was set out without a dime.	13:06
	There was a little Lutheran pastor	13:12
	who invited Erick Honecker to come into his parsonage	13:17
	and there live there with him and his wife and family.	13:22
	He gave him food, he gave him money.	13:27
	This is a particularly surprising act	13:30
	considering that Honecker had so persecuted	13:33
	the Lutheran Church in East Germany.	13:37
	A lot of people in the pastor's church didn't like it.	13:41
	He received some vile phone calls.	13:44
	People dropped out of the church.	13:47
	But when a reporter in Germany asked him,	13:50
	why in the world would you do something like this	13:53
	with this sworn enemy, Erick Honecker?	13:55
	The preacher just simply quoted scripture,	14:00
	"All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself	14:04
	"through Christ and has given us	14:09
	"the ministry of reconciliation.	14:11
	"We are ambassadors for Christ.	14:15
	"God is making his appeal through us.	14:19
	"We entreat you on behalf of Christ.	14:25
	"Be reconciled."	14:29
	See?	14:33
	It's in the imperative mood.	14:34
	It's a command.	14:37
	Be reconciled.	14:41
	And let's be honest there are times	14:46
	when we reassure ourselves, saying,	14:50
	oh, the contemporary world, it's such a complex place.	14:53
	There are so many ethical challenges that come our way	14:57
	that our grandparents didn't have to face.	15:01
	The Bible, it's such a difficult book.	15:04
	And Jesus, the things he says are sometimes so obtuse,	15:08
	I mean, who can understand it?	15:11
	And this may be one	15:15
	of our most effective defense mechanisms.	15:16
	It's like today Jesus cuts through all that	15:19
	and gets down to just saying,	15:21
	look, it's a command, you can understand it.	15:23
	You're commanded to love.	15:26
	John Dominic Crossan is the author of a number	15:30
	of provocative books about Jesus.	15:34
	He is a participant in the infamous Jesus seminar	15:37
	and recently he was interviewed	15:44
	in the Christian Century magazine	15:48
	and the interviewer was asking him	15:50
	about his research on Jesus and at the end of the interview	15:52
	Crossan turns it back upon himself	15:56
	and he imagines that he's being interviewed	15:58
	not by a newspaper reporter but by Jesus himself.	16:00
	And Jesus says to John Dominic Crossan,	16:04
	this biblical scholar, Dominic, I've read your book.	16:07
	And he says, well good, Jesus, what'd you think?	16:14
	And Jesus says, it's such a big book, it is so long.	16:18
	And Crossan says, oh but yes,	16:24
	but contemporary scholarship has made such advances	16:27
	in our understanding of you.	16:30
	And putting you in the proper context	16:32
	and all the sociological dynamics involved in your work.	16:34
	And Jesus says, yes, but Dominic,	16:38
	your book is like five times longer	16:41
	than all the Gospels put together.	16:43
	And he says, but Jesus, we've just learned so much	16:46
	and I research about you and I wanted	16:49
	to share that research and I wanted.	16:52
	And then Jesus says, all right Dominic,	16:54
	now that you've learned so much about me,	16:56
	are you now ready to follow me?	16:57
	And Crossan says, well I don't know	17:02
	that I have the courage for that	17:06
	but don't you think it's important that,	17:08
	don't you think it's something	17:12
	that I've at least clarified the nature of your demands.	17:13
	And the last thing Jesus says is,	17:20
	Dominic, no that's not much.	17:22
	I have to admit that as a preacher	17:31
	some of my artistic gymnastics in a sermon,	17:34
	some of my intellectual subtleties	17:42
	are in service to protecting you from the demands of Jesus.	17:49
	That's odd for me to say 'cause you'd think a preacher	17:57
	would be somebody who would help you meet Jesus.	17:59
	And that's why you're here this morning.	18:04
	You're here because you want to come close to God.	18:06
	And in the sermon is where you get things explained,	18:08
	and set out for you and you get close to God.	18:12
	But I'll tell you, to be honest,	18:15
	there's as much time spent in most sermons	18:18
	keeping you away from God.	18:22
	Taking some outrageous command of Jesus	18:25
	and explaining it, and nuancing it,	18:28
	and massaging it and working with it	18:30
	until by the end you feel okay.	18:33
	But this Sunday the case is different.	18:40
	He commands us to love.	18:43
	And that's a challenge.	18:49
	Last year I preached a sermon on forgiveness.	18:54
	I preached a sermon on forgiveness	18:57
	and I looked at forgiveness	18:59
	from a number of different angles.	19:01
	And people were filing out of church afterwards,	19:03
	this woman comes up to me,	19:07
	and she says directly to me, she asks,	19:09
	do you mean that I as a Christian am supposed	19:12
	to forgive my ex-husband who abused me for 15 years?	19:15
	Am I to forgive him?	19:23
	And I immediately moved into my non-defensive defensiveness	19:26
	and said, oh well, of course this has to be contextualized	19:31
	and I know that there are different circumstances	19:36
	and circumstances make a difference	19:39
	and I've only got 20 minutes, okay?	19:41
	I can't say everything that needs to be said	19:43
	but I do feel that it does seem like, at least,	19:47
	that Jesus demands that we forgive.	19:52
	And she said, thank you, just checking.	20:00
	(congregation laughing)	20:03
	Who gave me the right to protect you from Jesus?	20:08
	You've probably heard me tell,	20:16
	on my way out of my last parish one afternoon,	20:18
	I'd had a hard day, I was ready to go home.	20:22
	I had to rush home, get a bite to eat,	20:25
	come back for a night meeting.	20:27
	And I looked out the front door	20:30
	and there loping down the sidewalk	20:32
	was this forlorn character carrying a bag and I sighed.	20:34
	I thought to myself, this is what I get	20:43
	for having a church close to a highway.	20:45
	These people come by once or twice a week.	20:48
	They're always headed south.	20:51
	They've always got some sad story they wanna tell you	20:53
	about how they're down on their luck and everything.	20:55
	But the end of the story is always the same,	20:58
	can you give me $25 in cash?	21:01
	And I sighed.	21:05
	And I determined right then I would meet him on the sidewalk	21:07
	and I would get to the end of this	21:10
	and I'd give him what I had.	21:11
	I reached in my pocket, I had $15.	21:13
	He walked up to me and said, hey, are you the pastor here?	21:17
	Yes, I said.	21:22
	He said, well I'm wondering if you'd be able	21:24
	to help somebody.	21:26
	And I said, yes, well all right look, here I've got $15.	21:27
	That's all I've got.	21:30
	And you can have that but that's it.	21:32
	And I handed him the $15.	21:35
	He looked at it and without	21:38
	a single remark or acknowledgment	21:40
	he sullenly poked it in his pocket and he turned around.	21:42
	And he headed back out toward the highway	21:47
	and I turned around to lock the door of the church.	21:49
	And then, after walking a few steps,	21:53
	he wheeled around and he said to me,	21:55
	look, I guess you think I'm supposed to be grateful	21:57
	'cause you give me this money.	22:02
	And I said, well now that you mention it,	22:05
	a little gratitude, a mere thank you wouldn't be bad.	22:08
	He said, well I'm not gonna thank you	22:15
	and you wanna know why?	22:17
	And I said, why?	22:20
	And he pointed up there and he said,	22:23
	because he commanded you to do it.	22:26
	And he turned around and walked out.	22:32
	On the way home I thought to myself,	22:36
	the nerve of these people.	22:38
	I thought to myself, this is the kind of gratitude.	22:43
	I thought to myself, he was right.	22:46
	(congregation chuckling)	22:52

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Commanded to Love" (May 4, 1997)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:18. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 22:57.
The preacher argues that Christians are commanded by God to love; it is not optional or a matter of opinion. Discipleship means to love people even when it is difficult to do so. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4mg7g92x

Date:

May 4, 1997

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Easter

Biblical Book:

John

Chapter and Verse:

John 15:9-17

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0853
ref9856_ksk
uachapelsermaud
duke:320787
dcrau001498
ark:/87924/r4mg7g92x
58c03ca4-ae36-48a9-b0a9-306ec9eb645f

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.)

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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 - "Commanded to Love" (May 4, 1997)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Commanded to Love" (May 4, 1997)

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William H. Willimon - "Commanded to Love" (May 4, 1997)

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