William C. Gipson - "Keep Hope Alive" (October 11, 1998)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | I just wanna take this time to thank Dr. Willimon | 0:04 |
for the invitation to come to the Duke University Chapel | 0:08 | |
to be the preacher for today, | 0:12 | |
he is indeed a fine colleague in this ministry, | 0:14 | |
to the Assistant Dean of the Chapel | 0:19 | |
and Director of Religious Life, | 0:23 | |
Reverend Kenneth Nelson for his gracious hospitality, | 0:24 | |
to Ms. Christian Richardson, who is our Lector for today | 0:29 | |
who's member of the class of 2001 at the Divinity School, | 0:33 | |
to all of the staff in the office of the Dean | 0:36 | |
who were so kind in making sure that I get here, | 0:39 | |
and get here in one piece and comfortably, I'm grateful. | 0:43 | |
And for all you God's people, it is indeed a blessing | 0:48 | |
to be with you in this place of worship | 0:51 | |
with the sound of this beautiful music | 0:55 | |
from this guest choir from the Charlotte area, | 0:57 | |
and we are grateful to be with you as well. | 1:01 | |
Now, I want you to know I'm especially proud | 1:04 | |
that in our number today is a woman | 1:08 | |
who has, in some way, participated | 1:12 | |
in one of the greatest joys in my life, | 1:15 | |
the mother of my wife, Mrs. Mary Burgee, who's here today | 1:18 | |
and she has come out to hear her son-in-law, | 1:24 | |
so that's a strong affirmation. | 1:27 | |
If you don't like the sermon today, | 1:29 | |
at least you'll know my mother-in-law loves me. | 1:31 | |
(congregation laughing) | 1:34 | |
Mother Grand, as we call her in our house, | 1:35 | |
we're so delighted to see you this morning. | 1:37 | |
Now for the lessons. | 1:42 | |
From the Letter to the Hebrews, the 12th chapter. | 1:53 | |
"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded | 2:01 | |
"by so great a cloud of witnesses, | 2:05 | |
"let us lay aside every weight, | 2:08 | |
"and the sin which so easily ensnares us, | 2:11 | |
"and let us run with endurance | 2:15 | |
"the race that is set before us, | 2:16 | |
"looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, | 2:20 | |
"who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, | 2:25 | |
"despising the shame, and has sat down | 2:30 | |
"at the right hand of the throne of God." | 2:34 | |
And continuing at the 12th verse, | 2:37 | |
"Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, | 2:41 | |
"and the feeble knees, and make straight paths | 2:45 | |
"for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, | 2:49 | |
"but rather be healed. | 2:53 | |
"Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, | 2:56 | |
"without which no one will see the Lord, | 3:00 | |
"looking carefully lest anyone | 3:03 | |
"fall short of the grace of God, | 3:05 | |
"lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, | 3:08 | |
"and by this many become defiled." | 3:12 | |
And from Paul's Letter to the Corinthians, | 3:16 | |
First Corinthians 13, verse 13, | 3:20 | |
"And now abide faith, hope, love. | 3:29 | |
"these three, but the greatest of these is love." | 3:35 | |
This is the Word of the Lord. | 3:42 | |
- | Thanks be to God. | 3:45 |
- | There was no glide in their stride, | 3:51 |
there was no pep in their step, no snap in their rap. | 3:57 | |
They were zigging where they should have been zagging, | 4:02 | |
and zagging in places where they should have been zigging. | 4:06 | |
They were sagging and dragging. | 4:11 | |
They were rhythm people who had lost their beat, | 4:15 | |
marching people who were out of step. | 4:19 | |
They were people with long-distance runners' obligations, | 4:23 | |
but possessed only with relay runners' endurance. | 4:28 | |
This perspective on the people to whom | 4:34 | |
the Letter to the Hebrews was written | 4:37 | |
is derived from a reading of the text | 4:40 | |
which suggests that some of those | 4:42 | |
who had started out in the joy and celebration | 4:46 | |
of a new and living way in Christ Jesus | 4:49 | |
had now come to the place in their spiritual journeys | 4:52 | |
where they were tested, wearied, and fearful, | 4:57 | |
and were looking back with desire | 5:01 | |
to that place before they knew | 5:06 | |
the power of God revealed in Jesus. | 5:08 | |
But some discerning sister or brother | 5:13 | |
registered this thinking and affection | 5:16 | |
and began a tight and sustained theological argument | 5:18 | |
which insisted that they could not go back | 5:23 | |
to the old way of being, doing and knowing | 5:27 | |
without denying the life-changing | 5:31 | |
and cosmic cataclysmic work of God in Christ Jesus. | 5:33 | |
The author reminds them that many had gone on before them | 5:39 | |
having died without seeing the promise, | 5:43 | |
but they had kept hope alive by living, | 5:48 | |
believing, and acting as seeing the invisible. | 5:52 | |
The author exhorts them then to move forward. | 5:57 | |
Yes, the author implies it is an uphill journey, | 6:02 | |
but you have to keep climbing all the time. | 6:07 | |
We have come this far by faith, the author argues. | 6:11 | |
We've come trodding our way | 6:15 | |
through the blood of the slaughtered. | 6:17 | |
We have come this far, not by aid of a map, | 6:19 | |
or with the comfort of accurate weather forecast, | 6:24 | |
for it is often stormy on this journey. | 6:28 | |
Storm clouds gather and strong winds, | 6:32 | |
you know, they do blow. | 6:34 | |
But our author and pioneer on this journey is Jesus, | 6:37 | |
who for the joy that was set before him, | 6:42 | |
endured the cross and all of the shame, | 6:45 | |
but is now set down at the right hand of God. | 6:48 | |
Therefore, the author argues, we must stop | 6:52 | |
this sagging and dragging, this limping and weaving, | 6:55 | |
and get on the good foot, as James Brown says. | 6:58 | |
"Keep hope alive," answered our national, political, | 7:02 | |
and social parlance with the bold, and daring, | 7:07 | |
audacious, and provocative, electric, and synergetic | 7:12 | |
presidential candidacy of that South Carolina-born, | 7:17 | |
Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson. | 7:21 | |
But the phrase has deeper historical roots in our country, | 7:23 | |
and in the story of Christian life and faith. | 7:28 | |
One member of that cloud of witnesses from Hebrews 12:1 | 7:33 | |
referred to is Harriet Tubman. | 7:38 | |
Tubman, as you well know, a Christian saint | 7:43 | |
and an American of the first rank of patriotic action | 7:47 | |
made 19 trips south, eventually leading over 300 women, | 7:51 | |
men, boys, and girls to freedom. | 7:57 | |
Her word was, "Keep going." | 8:02 | |
She'd say, "Children, if you're tired, | 8:05 | |
keep going. | 8:10 | |
"If you're hungry, keep going. | 8:12 | |
"If you're scared, keep going. | 8:16 | |
"If you want to taste freedom, keep going." | 8:19 | |
Harriet Tubman was a saint, and the cloud of witnesses | 8:24 | |
is a convention of the saints who've passed on, | 8:28 | |
but saints also occupy this time and space. | 8:31 | |
Saints are people who have been awed | 8:37 | |
by God's self-revelation in their lives | 8:39 | |
and who've been freed by that revelation | 8:42 | |
to live and act audaciously in faith and hope. | 8:45 | |
Audacious for reconciliation, | 8:51 | |
audacious for the poor, | 8:55 | |
audacious for justice, | 8:58 | |
audacious for the big things of God. | 9:00 | |
Saints are people who are aware that God's time | 9:05 | |
is interpenetrating human history so profoundly | 9:08 | |
that they can see the skyline of a new Jerusalem | 9:13 | |
so vividly, | 9:18 | |
and experience God's grace so abundantly | 9:19 | |
that they live as if victory is theirs, | 9:23 | |
and truth, and mercy, and peace | 9:27 | |
were as real to them | 9:31 | |
as round is to circle, | 9:33 | |
black is to tar, | 9:37 | |
white on rice, and wiggle to jello. | 9:39 | |
They live as if God is real | 9:43 | |
and God's promises are sure. | 9:48 | |
Our current world and national, political, | 9:52 | |
and social-economic context call for | 9:55 | |
those kind of people, those saints. | 10:00 | |
It requires legions of saints who are close enough | 10:04 | |
to the struggles of life so as not | 10:09 | |
to underestimate the rampage of pain, | 10:11 | |
not to trivialize injustice and suffering, | 10:14 | |
but they are spiritually tuned enough to see | 10:19 | |
the promises of God even if they are far off. | 10:24 | |
These are they who know that fear is real, | 10:28 | |
but faith is stout resistance. | 10:34 | |
These are they who know that despair cannot be wished away, | 10:37 | |
but that hope is an anchor. | 10:43 | |
These are they who know that deception | 10:46 | |
is sometimes a welcome tranquilizer, | 10:49 | |
but that love confronts and transforms. | 10:52 | |
The context of our daily living, personal, | 10:57 | |
nationally, globally require that we have | 11:01 | |
that kind of perspective as people of God, | 11:06 | |
followers of Jesus Christ. | 11:10 | |
Economically, many of you know the story better than I, | 11:13 | |
but we do know that the haves have more, | 11:18 | |
the have-nots have not at all, | 11:21 | |
and since the might-have-beens are now the will-nots, | 11:23 | |
the could've-beens just won't be. | 11:27 | |
Politically, the ones we thought could, can't, | 11:28 | |
the ones we thought were, are not, | 11:32 | |
the ones we thought just would, won't, | 11:35 | |
and the ones we expected haven't shown up, | 11:37 | |
so it requires people of faith to step, | 11:40 | |
not into the gap, but into the fullness | 11:44 | |
of the sainthood God has called them to. | 11:48 | |
Is there any wonder why we need to keep hope alive? | 11:52 | |
We keep hope alive to hold open a space | 11:56 | |
for God to do those things that God does best. | 12:01 | |
Healing, and mending, reconciling, and delivering. | 12:05 | |
Our practice of faith, hope and love are our responses | 12:10 | |
to God's action already at work in the world. | 12:14 | |
There is then a real need for these Christian virtues, | 12:19 | |
faith, hope, and love, to have pragmatic utility, | 12:25 | |
especially for those who live | 12:30 | |
on the cutting edge of God's promises. | 12:32 | |
Folk like Abraham and Sarah, | 12:35 | |
folk like Mary and Joseph, | 12:39 | |
and those whose personal, private skies | 12:42 | |
are filled with foreboding sometimes. | 12:45 | |
Your address, and my address, the homeless, | 12:50 | |
those without medical insurance, | 12:53 | |
and the list goes on, and on for reasons to keep hope alive. | 12:56 | |
It will not suffice to view faith, hope, and love | 13:02 | |
as charming Greco/Roman ideals to be read about aloud | 13:06 | |
at picture-perfect, expensive weddings. | 13:12 | |
No, these are elements that sustain | 13:15 | |
relationship and community long after | 13:18 | |
the wedding party has dispersed. | 13:21 | |
These are active agents that hold it together | 13:24 | |
through thick and thin in all of life. | 13:28 | |
Faith, hope and love must meet | 13:31 | |
where the rubber hits the road | 13:34 | |
and they always appear together | 13:37 | |
when their best work is done. | 13:42 | |
Faith, you see, has a magnet-like attraction | 13:46 | |
to the promises of God, | 13:51 | |
so those who are in faith can see the promises of God, | 13:54 | |
they can smell their sweet savor, | 14:00 | |
they can then sing praises to God. | 14:03 | |
Those who have faith visit the future, | 14:07 | |
and the future visits them. | 14:13 | |
This is what Dr. King meant when he said, | 14:16 | |
"I've been to the mountaintop | 14:18 | |
"and I've seen the Promised Land." | 14:21 | |
That was not any special, spectacular event, | 14:23 | |
this was a man who was living at the very limits of faith, | 14:28 | |
faith that is available to you and I. | 14:33 | |
That's why Hebrews 11:1 begins to make sense. | 14:38 | |
"Now faith is the substance," | 14:44 | |
that is to say the solid reality, "of things hoped for, | 14:47 | |
"the evidence," that is the material proof, | 14:51 | |
"of things not seen." | 14:55 | |
Now, I am blessed | 14:57 | |
to live in one of the most exciting | 15:02 | |
American cities now for two years, | 15:05 | |
but my roots are deep in the South, | 15:09 | |
I am a Louisiana boy. | 15:12 | |
When I was thinking about this sermon, | 15:15 | |
and thinking about faith in particular, | 15:18 | |
I thought about how we can visit the future, | 15:21 | |
and the future can visit us | 15:27 | |
through the lens of one of my experiences | 15:29 | |
as a kid growing up in the northeast portion of Louisiana. | 15:34 | |
I don't know how many of you still eat | 15:41 | |
that wonderful Southern delicacy called collard greens, | 15:43 | |
but in my house it was a regular item on the menu, | 15:48 | |
and collard greens take a long time | 15:53 | |
to really get to the point where you can eat them. | 15:57 | |
If anybody ever offers you quick collard greens, | 16:01 | |
you head out the door. | 16:04 | |
(congregation laughing) | 16:05 | |
But you know, sometimes when they're cooking, | 16:07 | |
it smells so good and the anticipation is there, | 16:09 | |
but there's this gap between | 16:12 | |
when you'll be able to eat and your hunger. | 16:14 | |
Well, if you would take the lid off the pot, | 16:17 | |
take a of square of cornbread, | 16:21 | |
and you always have to have cornbread with collard greens, | 16:22 | |
and if you were to hold the cornbread over that pot, | 16:25 | |
the vapors from the collard greens would come up, | 16:30 | |
and after a while that cornbread | 16:33 | |
would just become mush in your hands and you could eat it, | 16:35 | |
and someone would say, "Oh, are the greens ready?" | 16:38 | |
You say, "No, they're not ready." | 16:41 | |
"What's that crumb matter all around your mouth?" | 16:43 | |
"Oh, you don't understand, | 16:47 | |
this is the substance of collard greens hope for, | 16:50 | |
the evidence of collard greens not seen." | 16:53 | |
We can visit the future, my sisters and brothers, | 16:56 | |
by living as if God's promises | 17:02 | |
are already realized. | 17:06 | |
There is a need, a strong need, for these Christian virtues, | 17:09 | |
faith, hope and love, to have pragmatic utility, | 17:15 | |
to make a difference in our lives | 17:19 | |
so that love is not etiquette dressed up in church language, | 17:22 | |
but a confronting, redeeming, and transforming power. | 17:26 | |
Hope is not wish, but strong conviction | 17:30 | |
that that which is promised will come to pass | 17:34 | |
if it is rooted and grounded in the one who is promised. | 17:39 | |
Faith is not a beautifully-worded | 17:43 | |
and finely-crafted confession to be recited, | 17:46 | |
but it is finally something that beats | 17:50 | |
with the very pulse of life. | 17:53 | |
And faith, you see, is her own witness, | 17:58 | |
and where you find faith, | 18:01 | |
there you shall find realized promise also. | 18:04 | |
I'm fascinated though, fascinated, | 18:08 | |
by that First Corinthians 13, | 18:13 | |
verse 13, | 18:18 | |
"Faith, hope and love," Paul writes, | 18:19 | |
I've thought about that. | 18:24 | |
Why do they appear together? | 18:26 | |
Well, I like to imagine faith, hope and love | 18:29 | |
as three sisters. | 18:33 | |
Faith is the stout and heavy-set sister | 18:38 | |
'cause she can move mountains. | 18:44 | |
And hope is the puny and weak sister | 18:47 | |
because there was a time before she was born, prenatally, | 18:50 | |
when everyone thought hope unborn had died. | 18:55 | |
But love, love is the more | 18:58 | |
graceful sister. | 19:02 | |
I almost said the more beautiful sister. | 19:05 | |
She is the more graceful sister | 19:08 | |
because when a beautiful person enters a room | 19:12 | |
everybody notices her or him, | 19:15 | |
but when a graceful person enters the room, | 19:19 | |
she or he notices everybody. | 19:22 | |
That's love, that's God's love, | 19:25 | |
that's the love that God calls us to. | 19:28 | |
But faith, if you will, | 19:31 | |
is often anxious and jittery | 19:35 | |
because we are so | 19:38 | |
lacking in faith sometimes. | 19:42 | |
Hope is kept weak and puny as a result of that. | 19:44 | |
And so therefore both of them, faith, hope and love | 19:49 | |
need the inspiration-- | 19:53 | |
Faith and hope need the inspiration of their sister, love, | 19:55 | |
to keep on keeping on. | 19:59 | |
In Hebrews, it says, | 20:02 | |
"Lift the weak hands and the feeble knees." | 20:05 | |
This is because somewhere along the way | 20:11 | |
these three sisters have parted, | 20:16 | |
but there has to be a way to keep them together | 20:20 | |
in perfect harmony to keep our lives sweet and strong, | 20:23 | |
to inspire us to live the kind of lives | 20:28 | |
that God has and is calling us to. | 20:32 | |
Keep hope alive. | 20:37 | |
Hebrews says that one of the ways we can do that | 20:39 | |
is by laying aside every weight. | 20:42 | |
I'm not the kind of preacher that's gonna go | 20:46 | |
through the list of all the vices and the sins, | 20:48 | |
I'm sure that it's inexhaustible, | 20:51 | |
and I'm sure there a few there on the list | 20:53 | |
that have some special association with me. | 20:56 | |
But my point in raising this text is to say, | 20:59 | |
if we're gonna keep hope alive, | 21:03 | |
there are some things we need to lay aside. | 21:05 | |
Small things that appear grand and large in our eyes, | 21:09 | |
but really don't benefit the cause of Christ | 21:14 | |
or our growth in God. | 21:17 | |
We have to keep hope alive. | 21:19 | |
Those three sisters, faith, hope and love, | 21:24 | |
if kept in communion with each other, | 21:29 | |
can make all the difference in the world. | 21:32 | |
It's like the admonition in Hebrews | 21:34 | |
to neglect not the gathering together of yourselves. | 21:38 | |
There is power in our company | 21:41 | |
keeping with each other, | 21:45 | |
there is strength in our company keeping with others, | 21:47 | |
there is a power in the communion. | 21:52 | |
I want to share one other story with you | 21:58 | |
and then I'll take my seat. | 22:01 | |
A colleague of mine | 22:07 | |
who works at The National Council of Churches, | 22:10 | |
tells a story of sitting outside in her backyard | 22:14 | |
one summer day with her two young sons. | 22:18 | |
They were splashing around in the pool, | 22:23 | |
and she had set up for herself a nice lawn chair | 22:27 | |
with a lemonade sitting there on the table. | 22:32 | |
The boys, as children will do, exhausted themselves | 22:37 | |
and one came running over, | 22:40 | |
picked up her tumbler, | 22:44 | |
and started to drink, and then he looked at his mother, | 22:48 | |
and he said, "Mommy, if I drink from this tumbler, | 22:51 | |
"will I catch your dreams?" | 22:56 | |
It was a slip. | 22:59 | |
He meant, "would I catch your germs?" | 23:03 | |
But it made me think of our communion together | 23:06 | |
around the Lord's table. | 23:10 | |
Were it that simple. | 23:12 | |
Every time we drink from the cup, | 23:14 | |
we catch God's dream for our hope, | 23:18 | |
for our faith, for deep love. | 23:23 | |
It may not be that simple, | 23:27 | |
but that's what the communion of the saints is about. | 23:29 | |
Every time we drink from that cup, | 23:33 | |
we can catch God's dream and keep hope alive. | 23:37 | |
My sisters and my brothers, let's keep hope alive, | 23:42 | |
for there are a lot of children out there | 23:47 | |
who are not receiving adequate education. | 23:50 | |
My brothers and my sisters, let's keep hope alive | 23:55 | |
because there are a lot of parents out there | 23:59 | |
who can't make ends meet. | 24:02 | |
Keep hope alive. | 24:04 | |
There are widows and widowers out there | 24:06 | |
who are being crushed by loneliness. | 24:08 | |
We gotta keep hope alive, | 24:11 | |
and we keep hope alive by keeping | 24:14 | |
these three sisters together in our theological landscape, | 24:16 | |
but standing close together, side-by-side, | 24:20 | |
in our lives, one with the other. | 24:24 | |
Whatever you do, keep hope alive. | 24:29 | |
Amen. | 24:32 |
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