William H. Willimon - "Thy Kingdom Come" (November 23, 1997)

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-	I can tell by looking at you that some of you	0:18
	are ancient enough to remember the old Perry Mason show.	0:21
	You remember that series with Raymond Burr?	0:26
	It still plays from time to time on TV.	0:28
	It has a kind of timeless appeal.	0:31
	And what is that appeal?	0:36
	Well, Perry Mason shows a rather predictable	0:39
	and maybe that's their power.	0:44
	Although the crime which is under investigation	0:46
	may be perplexing, you always know that	0:50
	by the end of the trial, Perry Mason is going	0:53
	to figure it out and reveal it in the courtroom	0:58
	and the accused is going to blurt out,	1:02
	"Yes, yes I did it.	1:05
	"I killed her because I hated her."	1:07
	And we love stories about trials which turn out right.	1:09
	And maybe it's because in this life	1:15
	it sometimes seems as if trials so rarely turn out	1:18
	the way they ought, where goodness is finally vindicated	1:23
	and evil is righteously exposed.	1:29
	In life, things are more ragged.	1:35
	It doesn't seem like the good often get what they deserve	1:38
	and the bad get what they deserve.	1:42
	Maybe the most wonderful moment in the Perry Mason shows	1:46
	was a delicious moment when Hamilton Burger	1:50
	who was the DA, the district attorney,	1:54
	who would so pompously walk into the courtroom	2:00
	thinking he knew who was guilty	2:03
	and he knew who was innocent	2:06
	and he knew what was right	2:08
	and then there was that moment	2:10
	when Perry Mason always shows up Hamilton Burger	2:11
	to be a kind of bureaucratic buffoon	2:14
	and he sits there with his mouth open	2:18
	and you watch power shift	2:20
	from the self-confident DA to Perry Mason.	2:22
	It's good to watch Perry Mason get it right.	2:27
	I'm bringing up all this because this is a lead in.	2:31
	It's what we call in the business, a teaser,	2:35
	into the Scripture for today	2:37
	which, on Christ the King's Sunday	2:40
	is the trial of Jesus before Pilate	2:42
	as told in the gospel of John chapter 18.	2:48
	Hear the word of the Lord.	2:53
	"Pilate entered his headquarters again	2:56
	"and he summoned Jesus and asked Jesus,	2:58
	"'Are you king of the Jews?'	3:02
	"Jesus answered, 'Do you ask this of your own	3:05
	"'or did others tell you to say this about me?'	3:09
	"Pilate replied, 'Am I a Jew?	3:14
	"'Your own nation and the chief priests	3:17
	"'have handed you over to me.	3:21
	"'What have you done?'	3:23
	"Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world.	3:26
	"'If my kingdom were from this world	3:32
	"'then my followers would be fighting	3:35
	"'to keep me handed over to the Jews	3:37
	"'but as it is, my kingdom is not from here.'	3:39
	"Pilate asked him, 'So you're a king?'	3:45
	"Jesus answered, 'You have said that I am king.	3:50
	"'For this I was born.	3:55
	"'For this I came into the world to testify to the truth.	3:57
	"'Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.'"	4:02
	This is the word of the Lord.	4:10
	Thanks be to God.	4:13
	Today's gospel is a courtroom trial.	4:17
	The trial of Jesus of Nazareth by Pilate.	4:20
	Jesus has been dragged before Pilate	4:26
	who is in charge of the Roman occupation forces in Judea	4:29
	and the trial is supposed to be this scene	4:34
	where this bedraggled, powerless, poor, itinerate rabbi	4:37
	named Jesus stands trembling before the man	4:43
	who represents all of the imperial power of Rome,	4:47
	all of that might arrayed behind him.	4:53
	Pilate.	4:58
	You can see, by the way, this scene carved in lime wood	5:00
	in the central scene over the altar here at Duke Chapel.	5:05
	It's in the central location.	5:11
	It is a scene which is portrayed the most prominently	5:14
	in our chapel.	5:17
	There it is.	5:19
	Jesus in his trial in the courtroom of Pontius Pilate.	5:20
	You can come up and examine it after the service.	5:27
	And yet scarcely has this trial begun	5:32
	before we realize that here is a trial	5:34
	that's not gonna go the way that we had expected.	5:39
	There is Pilate.	5:44
	Pilate who is supposed to be running the show,	5:46
	Pilate supposed to be in charge,	5:49
	but in this story Pilate is jumping	5:51
	around all over the place.	5:56
	He moves back and forth.	5:58
	In this scene, we didn't read all of it,	6:00
	but in this scene Pilate leaves the room	6:02
	seven times during this trial.	6:05
	He goes in and out of the room.	6:09
	He's checking with this legal expert and that one.	6:11
	Pilate, biting his nails.	6:15
	Pilate, uncertain, inept, frightened of the crowd outside.	6:18
	Indecisive.	6:22
	"Are you king of the Jews?" asked Pilate,	6:25
	and surely he means it to be mocking.	6:28
	The Jews?	6:33
	They can't have a king.	6:34
	They're a captive people.	6:36
	They've got no army and there Pilate sits	6:38
	on the judgment seat, backed up by the armies of Rome.	6:41
	Pilate looks at this forlorn, wiped, bleeding Galilean	6:47
	and asked in mocking sarcasm, so, (chuckles),	6:52
	they tell me you're a king.	6:56
	Jesus responds sardonically.	7:00
	"Now, do you say this of your own	7:06
	"or did somebody else tell you to say it about me?"	7:09
	And at that moment we suspect	7:14
	that the tables may be turning in this trial.	7:16
	Pilate, is this something you thought up for yourself?	7:20
	You, working for the government?	7:23
	Not good at thinking on your own.	7:25
	Did you think this up yourself	7:28
	or is this only a rumor,	7:29
	is this some, like, the result	7:30
	of your latest public opinion polls?	7:33
	Again, there is a question followed by Jesus' statement.	7:38
	"My kingdom is not of this world."	7:43
	And we're beginning to get the movement of this drama.	7:49
	The kingdoms of this world depend upon armies	7:56
	and violence to prop up their power.	8:00
	Jesus says, "My kingdom is not from here."	8:04
	My kingdom, it isn't from around here.	8:09
	And it really isn't, you know.	8:16
	Jesus the defendant has become Jesus the prosecutor.	8:19
	Pilate the judge becomes Pilate the defendant,	8:26
	standing sheepishly now before Jesus the judge.	8:29
	Tom Long says that every statement now	8:35
	shows Pilate more and more confounded	8:39
	by this mysterious presence.	8:42
	Pilate is no poised diplomat.	8:46
	He is no serene, secure judge.	8:49
	Rather he's a ping pong ball slapped back and forth	8:54
	between his public fears and his inner doubts.	8:58
	Pilate pleads, then he tries bullying,	9:02
	and then he begs, and he vacillates and he finally folds.	9:05
	The story ends with John saying,	9:11
	"Then he handed over Jesus to be crucified."	9:13
	And the irony is rich.	9:19
	It is Jesus who is to be crucified	9:23
	and yet it is Pilate and everybody like him who is defeated.	9:27
	It is Jesus who shall suffer death	9:35
	but it is the world and its kingdoms,	9:38
	the kingdoms from here, that perish.	9:43
	You see, I think in this story John is saying something	9:50
	about power, about the fragility	9:53
	and the ultimate illegitimacy of our kingdoms.	9:57
	An assault is being made here upon our definitions of power	10:03
	and our definitions of glory	10:09
	and I think John is depicting the way	10:11
	in which, by the end of the trial,	10:14
	the glory of God breaks through	10:19
	and we see the real truth of things.	10:22
	If you know anything about the gospel of John,	10:26
	you know John just loves to do this,	10:27
	where you think you know what is going on on the surface.	10:31
	This is a trial.	10:33
	The party of the first part speaking	10:35
	to the party of the second part.	10:37
	Everything being done by the rules.	10:38
	And yet, by the end of the thing,	10:41
	something breaks out	10:43
	and we realize there's a lot more going on here	10:44
	than we first thought.	10:47
	Just like those memorable endings on the Perry Mason show.	10:51
	At the end, the real criminal is made to confess,	10:54
	to tell the whole truth and nothing	10:59
	but the truth despite himself.	11:01
	And the one who confesses, ironically it's Pilate.	11:07
	"Are you king?"	11:14
	"What have you done?"	11:16
	"Oh, well what is truth?"	11:18
	"Well, where are you from?" asked Pilate.	11:20
	And his blathering questions become our answers.	11:23
	Jesus is king.	11:29
	Jesus is truth.	11:32
	He is not from our kingdoms	11:34
	but rather he is a sign of God's in breaking kingdom.	11:37
	In this trial, Jesus goes head to head	11:43
	with the powers that be	11:45
	and we see those powers crumble	11:48
	in the face of his power.	11:51
	And we see that we are not left as hapless victims	11:56
	of the powers of this world	12:01
	because Jesus is king.	12:04
	Tom Long reminds us that during the days	12:11
	of the civil rights movement in the south,	12:15
	in the struggle for racial integration,	12:20
	black and white people rode in buses	12:23
	called freedom riders	12:27
	and these freedom riders would travel from town to town	12:30
	in a bus and then they would systematically	12:34
	enter some segregated establishment	12:36
	and demand to be served in an integrated way	12:39
	and they challenged segregationist laws.	12:43
	Sometimes the freedom riders were greeted with violence	12:48
	and often they were arrested.	12:52
	In one southern town, a bus was halted by the police	12:56
	and the passengers were booked and jailed	13:01
	and while they were in jail	13:05
	the jailers did everything they could	13:06
	to break the spirits of the freedom riders.	13:09
	They played loud music all night	13:12
	and they left on the lights of the jail cells	13:14
	all night in order to deprive them of sleep.	13:17
	They added salt to the jail food to make it inedible.	13:21
	When none of this seemed to work,	13:28
	they started removing the mattresses of the prisoners,	13:29
	one by one, hoping to stir up some dissension	13:32
	within the ranks of the freedom riders in jail.	13:36
	Eventually their strategies seemed to be taking hold.	13:43
	Morale in the jail cells slumped.	13:48
	The lowest point, one of the jail leaders,	13:53
	looking around at his dispirited fellow prisoners,	13:56
	began to sing.	14:02
	He began to sing softly the words	14:05
	of an old spiritual	14:07
	and slowly everybody else in the group	14:10
	began to sing until everybody in the cells	14:13
	was singing at the top of his voice,	14:17
	until the puzzled jailers felt the jailhouse	14:20
	just vibrating with sounds of joyful gospel.	14:24
	When they went in to see what	14:32
	was happening back in the cells,	14:34
	the prisoners triumphantly and joyfully pushed	14:36
	the few remaining mattresses	14:40
	through the bars of the cells saying,	14:42
	"You can take our mattresses	14:45
	"but you can't have our souls."	14:47
	Now, that is an episode somewhat similar	14:53
	to the one we read about here in the gospel of John.	14:58
	It was the hymn singers who were in jail	15:02
	but it was the jailers who were guilty.	15:10
	It was the prisoners who were suffering	15:13
	but it was the jailers who got defeated.	15:15
	It was the prisoners who were weak and powerless	15:18
	but it was a broken and bigoted world	15:22
	of all of the jailers and the Pontius Pilates	15:27
	who've ever lived that were perishing.	15:30
	This Sunday, the last Sunday of the church's year,	15:36
	is Christ the King, when the church pauses	15:41
	to focus upon the grand cosmic practical truth	15:46
	that Jesus reigns.	15:52
	On this Sunday, the church proclaims the truth	15:56
	that is wide as the whole cosmos	16:00
	but as practical as what you've got to do tomorrow.	16:04
	Jesus reigns.	16:08
	There is no corner of creation utterly immune from his rule.	16:11
	Jesus reigns.	16:16
	One of you last Sunday caught me interceding	16:19
	for the people of Iraq during the prayer for others.	16:23
	What gives us the right to pray	16:30
	for the people of Iraq?	16:31
	Jesus reigns.	16:35
	Whether the world knows it or not,	16:38
	all the world is claimed territory for our Christ.	16:40
	Whether the rules of this world know it or not,	16:46
	they stand under judgment.	16:49
	Jesus reigns.	16:54
	There is no power greater than his power	16:55
	and you can see this truth clearly	17:01
	up there in the chapel carving in lime wood.	17:03
	You can see it up there.	17:07
	Pilate is sitting upon the throne	17:09
	with the symbols S-P-Q-R, the symbols of Roman power	17:12
	and the wolf, everything backing up Pilate.	17:19
	Pilate is on the throne	17:23
	but the wood carver has made Pilate appear small,	17:27
	weak, limp-wristed, uneasy on his judgment seat	17:33
	and Jesus stands there in the middle of the courtroom,	17:40
	standing there dominating the scene,	17:44
	larger than life, serene, sure, staring out at us	17:47
	as one who rules.	17:52
	That kind of thing is enough to make a person ask,	17:58
	well, who is in charge here?	18:02
	Who rules?	18:05
	Now I want you to remember this scene in Pilate's court	18:09
	whenever you are made to stand before the powers that be	18:13
	and testify to the hope that is within you.	18:18
	Jesus reigns.	18:22
	I want to tell those of you who are young,	18:25
	who feel vulnerable before the future,	18:29
	it is powerful freedom when you stand up	18:34
	before the powers that be and are made to answer.	18:36
	It is powerful freedom to know they don't own you	18:40
	'cause Jesus reigns.	18:44
	When you walk out of here	18:49
	and go back to a tomorrow morning,	18:52
	to the classroom or the boardroom	18:57
	or the assembly line or the pots and pans	19:01
	at the kitchen sink,	19:03
	there will be moments when you shall be questioned,	19:07
	accused, challenged.	19:10
	Do not fear.	19:14
	Powerful imperial forces are at work upon you.	19:17
	Subtle imperial.	19:22
	They question you about the way	19:24
	you spend your money and your time.	19:26
	They question you about the way you use your body.	19:29
	They question you about that future	19:32
	towards which you are walking.	19:35
	But do not fear.	19:37
	Jesus has been there.	19:39
	He has faced the world	19:43
	and all of the world's accusations	19:45
	and has triumphed.	19:49
	The trial is over.	19:52
	The tables have turned.	19:55
	The verdict is in.	19:58
	Jesus shall reign.	20:01
	(gentle organ music)	20:08
	♪ Jesus shall reign ♪	20:47
	♪ Wherever the sun ♪	20:50
	♪ Doth his successive journeys run ♪	20:56
	♪ His Kingdom spread from shore to shore ♪	21:04
	♪ 'Til moons shall wax and wane no more ♪	21:13
	♪ To him shall endless prayer be made ♪	21:24
	♪ And princes throng to crown his head ♪	21:33
	♪ His name like sweet perfume shall rise ♪	21:42
	♪ With every morning sacrifice ♪	21:52
	♪ People and realms of every tongue ♪	22:03
	♪ Dwell on his love with sweetest song ♪	22:12
	♪ And infant voices shall proclaim ♪	22:22
	♪ Their early blessings on his name ♪	22:31
	♪ Blessings abound wherever he reigns ♪	22:42
	♪ The prisoner leap and lose his chains ♪	22:51
	♪ The weary find eternal rest ♪	23:00
	♪ And all the sons of want are blessed ♪	23:10
	♪ Let every creature rise and bring ♪	23:21
	♪ Peculiar honors to our King ♪	23:29
	♪ Angels descend with songs again ♪	23:39
	♪ And earth repeat the loud Amen ♪	23:48

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Thy Kingdom Come" (November 23, 1997)

Description:

Sermon start time: (Part 1) 0:19. Sermon end time: (Part 1) 20:04.
On Christ the King Sunday, Jesus' reign and triumph over the kingdoms of this world and the powers that be is preached. While Jesus is crucified and put to death, it is the likes of Pilate and the kingdoms of this world that ultimately perishes. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4kk94s50

Date:

November 23, 1997

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Biblical Book:

John

Chapter and Verse:

John 18:33-37

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0881
ref9912_b5z
uachapelsermaud
duke:320562
dcrau001526
ark:/87924/r4kk94s50
015db934-7b16-4f4c-9d2f-f94b49ec8afc

Digital Collection:

Duke Chapel Recordings

Source Collection:

Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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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