William H. Willimon - "The Prevailing Spirit" (May 31, 1998)

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-	reading is from the gospel according	0:03
	to Saint John chapter 14.	0:05
	Philip said to him, "Lord show us the Father,	0:12
	"and will be satisfied."	0:17
	Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you all this time,	0:21
	"Philip, and you still do not know me?	0:25
	"whoever has seen me has seen the Father.	0:29
	"How can you say, 'show us the Father'	0:33
	"do you not believe that I am in the Father,	0:37
	"and the Father is in me?	0:39
	"The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own	0:42
	"but the Father who dwells in me does His works.	0:46
	"Believe me, that I am in the Father	0:50
	"and the Father is in me.	0:54
	"but if you do not, then believe me because	0:57
	of the works themselves.	1:00
	"Very truly I tell you, the one who believes in me	1:02
	"will also do the works that I do,	1:05
	"and in fact will do greater works than these	1:08
	"because I am going to the Father.	1:10
	"I will do whatever you ask in my name	1:14
	"So that the Father may be glorified in the son.	1:17
	"If in my name you ask me for anything,	1:22
	"I will do it.	1:25
	"If you love me, you will keep my commandments,	1:28
	"and I will ask the Father and He will give you	1:31
	"another advocate to be with you forever.	1:34
	"this is the spirit of truth	1:38
	"whom the world cannot receive	1:40
	"because it neither sees Him nor knows Him.	1:41
	"You know Him because He abides with you	1:45
	"and He will be in you.	1:48
	"I have said these things to you	1:51
	"while I am still with you,	1:54
	"but the advocate, the Holy Spirit	1:56
	"whom the Father will send in my name	1:58
	"will teach you everything and remind you	2:00
	"of all that I have said to you.	2:04
	"Peace, I leave with you.	2:07
	"My peace I give to you.	2:10
	"I do not give to you as the world gives.	2:14
	"Do not let your hearts be troubled	2:18
	"and do not let them be afraid.	2:21
	"This is the Word of the Lord."	2:25
All	Thanks be to God.	2:28
-	Those of you who know me know that this is the week	2:43
	of the year	2:47
	that I always manage to	2:48
	end the week depressed.	2:52
	Because this is the week of the year	2:56
	that I spend most of my week	2:58
	at a church convention.	3:01
	My annual conference	3:03
	of the South Carolina Conference	3:04
	of the United Methodist Church.	3:07
	Here's a church that has lost about 60000 members	3:10
	every year for the last two decades.	3:13
	And when we get together we manage never to mention that.	3:17
	We simply go through the agenda as if	3:21
	business were as usual.	3:24
	From eight in the morning til late at night,	3:28
	heavy on procedure, heavy on the mechanisms of movement	3:32
	without any movement.	3:38
	Everybody Roberts' Rules of Order to death.	3:41
	The whole thing run by these little nerds	3:44
	that actually know Roberts' Rules of Order	3:48
	and how to get things done.	3:50
	At one point in the conference I wanted to stand up	3:52
	and say, "Does anybody know if Mr. Roberts	3:54
	"is even a Christian?	3:56
	"Why's he running this meeting?	3:58
	"what do we care?"	3:59
	It's just all so locked in	4:01
	and there's no space for	4:04
	God to get in and do anything with us it seems.	4:08
	And yet, this day I am reminded	4:14
	that I am not permitted to give up hope.	4:17
	A friend of mine was asked a few years ago	4:23
	is there any hope	4:25
	for the renewal of the Methodist church?	4:28
	And he said,	4:32
	"if it were up to me, no.	4:34
	"But because of the Holy Spirit, there's always hope."	4:38
	This is the day, this Pentecost when we celebrate	4:44
	the descent of the Holy Spirit.	4:49
	Into all our differences, over all of our boundaries;	4:54
	our walls of race and clan and language and nationality.	4:57
	And what separations among us are more deadly	5:04
	than those?	5:06
	Over all of that leaps the Holy Spirit.	5:08
	You've just had read to you that drama	5:14
	from Acts two.	5:17
	There we were gathered together, all our differences,	5:19
	all nations of Jews under the sun.	5:24
	And at the Spirit's descent,	5:30
	these differences were overcome at Pentecost.	5:31
	the Holy Spirit prevailed.	5:38
	Now let us be clear, there is a human spirit.	5:44
	We sometimes speaks as that human spirit	5:49
	has power within humanity.	5:52
	We say that the human spirit is indomitable.	5:55
	When the track star stumbled	6:00
	but she recovered, and got up;	6:03
	picked herself up and finished the race,	6:05
	the sports commentator said,	6:07
	"That women has great spirit."	6:10
	He was speaking of the human spirit.	6:13
	When William Faulkner was given the Nobel Prize	6:16
	in Stockholm, he gave a speech saying,	6:19
	"I believe in man.	6:23
	I believe that the spirit of humanity	6:27
	"will triumph despite everything."	6:30
	Faulkner believed in the triumph of the human spirit.	6:35
	And yet this is not about that.	6:41
	For the human spirit is also at times an adversary with God.	6:44
	The same human spirit which in times of difficulty	6:49
	is able to pick itself up, brush itself off,	6:53
	and keep going.	6:56
	Is also the spirit which at times	6:59
	clenches its fist in rage and rebellion against God.	7:01
	That same spirit which holds on tight to the status quo,	7:06
	which gets stuck in ruts, which loves the accustom routine.	7:12
	Us at annual conference.	7:17
	All this in defiance against a living God.	7:20
	How ironic that the human spirit	7:25
	which is the source of some of our greatest achievements,	7:27
	is also that which brings humanity	7:31
	to its greatest grief.	7:33
	And today is when the church ponders the Holy Spirit.	7:38
	Lisa Fischbeck has noted that when Christians read history,	7:44
	we are taught to read human history	7:50
	as a long story of interaction, conflict,	7:53
	and cooperation between the Holy Spirit	7:57
	and the human spirit.	8:00
	the Holy Spirit and the human spirit have at times	8:04
	been at odds with one another.	8:06
	At times they have danced together, encouraged one another.	8:08
	At times they've been in combat with each other.	8:13
	And yet always, thank God,	8:17
	the history of the church shows	8:21
	that the Holy Spirit prevails.	8:22
	Pentecost was a Jewish festival.	8:27
	It took place not long after the resurrection of Jesus.	8:30
	Jesus had been raised, the disciples had seen Him	8:34
	resurrected and returned to them.	8:38
	And yet now, Jesus has ascended, and He left them.	8:41
	What about them?	8:46
	Jesus told them, you wait in Jerusalem,	8:49
	and I'll give you the same spirit which empowered me.	8:51
	They waited.	8:57
	They wondered.	8:59
	Was Easter just a one time thing	9:01
	that maybe happened to Jesus but to nobody else?	9:03
	Were they now in a position where they would be forced	9:08
	to take a deep breath, to dust themselves off,	9:12
	to clench their fist and try to move forward	9:15
	with a positive attitude without Jesus?	9:19
	Many felt despair, fear,	9:24
	and yet the story say that on the day of Pentecost,	9:28
	there was a rush of mighty wind,	9:32
	there were tongues of fire and the church was born.	9:33
	The once disheartened disciples	9:38
	moved out, and pushed forward.	9:40
	Prodded, empowered by the Holy Spirit.	9:43
	Which gave them what the human spirit alone could not.	9:48
	the Holy Spirit prevailed.	9:53
	The people out in the street that day at Pentecost	9:56
	thought the disciples were drunk.	9:58
	And Peter in his defense said,	10:01
	"This is what the prophet Amos foretold."	10:04
	It used to be that the spirit just descended upon	10:08
	a few individuals we call prophets,	10:12
	but there's going to come a day when the spirit of God	10:15
	will just be poured out on everybody.	10:17
	Old people, young people, maids, janitors.	10:20
	People high and people low.	10:24
	Everybody will get the spirit.	10:26
	The disciples probably wondered,	10:36
	is this spirit just for us?	10:38
	Are the promises of God just for Israel?	10:42
	There were only Jews there at Pentecost.	10:44
	And yet, a couple of weeks ago,	10:48
	we read about that vision that Peter had.	10:50
	Where the sheep was let down three times	10:53
	and there were the words, "Kill and eat."	10:55
	and Peter said, "I've never eaten anything unclean."	10:58
	and the voice said,	11:01
	"Don't call anything I created 'unclean'"	11:02
	And eventually Peter realized that it was a vision	11:05
	not just of unclean food, but of unclean people.	11:08
	And Peter reached out and baptized the first gentile.	11:14
	The church could have become just a sect	11:19
	within Judaism.	11:22
	A gathering place for disgruntled Israelites alone.	11:24
	But as Peter discovered, the promise of God	11:28
	was sent even to the outsiders, gentiles.	11:32
	the Holy Spirit prevailed.	11:36
	The book of Acts, we call the book	11:40
	of the Acts of the Apostles.	11:42
	But it might better be called the book	11:45
	of the Acts of the Holy Spirit.	11:47
	Because it's a long story about how the Holy Spirit	11:50
	keeps jumping over our boundaries and prevailing.	11:53
	1500 years after this story,	11:59
	the church which was begun at Pentecost languished.	12:01
	There was widespread corruption,	12:06
	there was abuse of power by the church.	12:08
	The church had become wealthy and complacent.	12:11
	With the movement which had begun at Pentecost	12:15
	go the way of all other organizations,	12:18
	in which you know, first days there's vibrancy	12:20
	in the institution; but eventually sociological realities	12:23
	set in and the thing matures and just dies	12:26
	and is forgotten.	12:29
	From Rotterdam, Erasmus wrote his passionate	12:33
	and reasoned call for change.	12:36
	An Augustinian monk named Martin Luther	12:41
	called the church back to its biblical basis.	12:44
	You and I have been taught to call this the reformation.	12:48
	But today let us call it the Holy Spirit prevailed.	12:54
	18th century England was going through the trauma	13:01
	of urbanization.	13:04
	The first industrial revolution.	13:05
	Alcoholism was rampant,	13:08
	poverty degraded the lives of millions,	13:11
	and the church seemed far away	13:15
	from these tragedies.	13:16
	Remote privilege cold.	13:19
	A priest in the Church of England named John Wesley	13:21
	felt his heart strangely warmed.	13:24
	He began a dramatic revival.	13:27
	Which swept through England like wildfire	13:31
	and transformed the hearts and minds of millions.	13:34
	The Wesleyan revival showed the resilience	13:38
	of the church, yes.	13:42
	It showed the value of a good Oxford education	13:44
	on the clergy, yes.	13:47
	But more so it showed	13:50
	as Wesley's heart was strangely warmed,	13:55
	it showed that the Holy Spirit prevailed.	13:59
	Early 20th century America was not that different	14:05
	from England in the 18th century.	14:09
	The young country's burgeoning cities	14:12
	were characterized by wretched tenements	14:15
	where recently arrived immigrants huddled.	14:18
	There was great poverty and despair.	14:21
	A smart young man, just after college named	14:25
	Frank Mason North was lead into the worst of the poverty.	14:27
	In New York City, a section known as Hell's Kitchen.	14:31
	There Frank Mason North worked among the cities' poor.	14:36
	He devised new structures for their uplift.	14:40
	He gave them hope and there in Hell's kitchen he wrote	14:43
	a beloved hymn: Where Cross the Crowded Ways of Life.	14:46
	We're gonna sing it shortly.	14:51
	Again, despite everything against it.	14:55
	the Holy Spirit prevailed.	15:01
	Women were once key leaders of the church	15:04
	if the New Testament be believed.	15:08
	But they have been pushed to the back	15:11
	as the church fell into the morays	15:12
	of the surrounding Pagan culture.	15:16
	Oh there were exceptions over the years	15:19
	like William and Catherine Booth of the Salvation Army.	15:21
	But mostly the gifts of women were ignored	15:25
	or repudiated by the church.	15:27
	It was in this century that the church woke	15:31
	to the tragedy of its past practice.	15:34
	The gifts of women were affirmed.	15:36
	Mainline protestant churches began ordaining women	15:38
	and they flocked to our seminaries and pulpits	15:42
	by the thousands.	15:44
	What was this?	15:47
	A sign that the poor, old, antiquated church	15:49
	was finally catching up with the times?	15:51
	A mere idea whose time had come?	15:55
	Today we call it this: the Holy Spirit prevailed.	16:00
	Here's how Walter Casper puts this matter	16:06
	between us and the Holy Spirit:	16:09
	"Everywhere that life breaks forth and comes into being	16:13
	"everywhere that new life seethes and bubbles forth,	16:17
	"And even as hope,	16:23
	"everywhere that life if violently	16:26
	"devastated, throttled, gagged and slain,	16:29
	"wherever life exists,	16:33
	"there the spirit of God is at work."	16:35
	Or as another theologian called the Holy Spirit:	16:41
	the Holy Spirit is the imagination of God at work.	16:45
	Over our boundaries, leaping over all walls,	16:52
	dragging the church, sometimes kicking and screaming	16:56
	into God's future; the Holy Spirit has prevailed.	16:58
	In this chapel, time and again, when we have come here	17:05
	cold of heart, slow to move; timid, cowering.	17:09
	the Holy Spirit has prevailed.	17:15
	In your own life, in those moments when all seems lost,	17:18
	when there is no way, there's this dead end,	17:25
	and yet, you have been surprised when an unexpected	17:31
	door was opened and there was a way	17:35
	when you thought there was no way.	17:39
	We call that the prevalence of the Holy Spirit.	17:44
	Our charge is clear,	17:53
	it's not between hope and despair,	17:58
	but it's between resistance to the Holy Spirit	18:01
	or cooperation.	18:05
	We therefore do not lose hope,	18:08
	we therefore keep on tiptoes,	18:11
	expectant, eager, sometimes even nervous	18:14
	because the Holy Spirit which gave birth to our church	18:20
	continues to bring birth.	18:23
	To prod, to cajole, the beckon forward.	18:26
	Just when we get all settled down	18:30
	and comfortable with present arrangements,	18:32
	with our pews bolted down securely to the floor,	18:35
	all fixed and immobile.	18:39
	Just going through Roberts' Rules of Order.	18:42
	Becomes this rush of wind, the thresholds shake,	18:47
	the foundations tremble.	18:53
	Or maybe there's a still small voice,	18:58
	or there's a rush of fresh air,	19:01
	or tongues of fire.	19:05
	And we know once again in our story,	19:09
	despite us, the Holy Spirit prevails.	19:13

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "The Prevailing Spirit" (May 31, 1998)

Description:

Sermon start time: 02:41. Sermon end time: 19:22.
The preacher gives accounts of disciples’ stories from the Bible and developments in Church history to show that the Holy Spirit always prevails over the human spirit. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4js9hp6f

Date:

May 31, 1998

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Biblical Book:

Acts

Chapter and Verse:

Acts 2:1-21

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-0908
ref9965_mqm
uachapelsermaud
duke:320889
dcrau001552
ark:/87924/r4js9hp6f
a3f8650b-afe2-419a-b981-a87ef20167a2

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 - "The Prevailing Spirit" (May 31, 1998)

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1. William H. Willimon - "The Prevailing Spirit" (May 31, 1998)

Duke University Archives

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William H. Willimon - "The Prevailing Spirit" (May 31, 1998)

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Duke University Archives

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