Patrick M. Clark - "Awaiting New Wine" (February 27, 2000)

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-	Gospel according to Saint Mark, the second chapter.	0:03
	"Jesus went out again beside the sea.	0:07
	"The whole crowd gathered around him	0:10
	"and he taught them.	0:12
	"As he was walking along,	0:14
	"He saw Levi, Son of Alpheus,	0:15
	"sitting at the tax booth.	0:18
	"And he said to him, follow me,	0:19
	"and he got up and followed him.	0:21
	"And as he sat at dinner, at Levi's house,	0:24
	"many tax collectors and sinners	0:26
	"were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples,	0:28
	"for there were many who followed him.	0:32
	"When the scribes of the Pharisees	0:34
	"saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors,	0:36
	"they said to his disciples,	0:39
	"Why does he eat with tax collectors	0:41
	"and with sinners?	0:43
	"When Jesus heard this,	0:44
	"he said to them,	0:45
	"Those who are well have no need of a physician,	0:47
	"but those who are sick.	0:50
	"I have come, not to call the righteous but sinners.	0:52
	"Now John's disciples and the Pharisees	0:56
	"were fasting and people came and said to him,	0:58
	"Why do John's disciples	1:00
	"and the disciples of the Pharisees fast,	1:02
	"but your disciples do not fast?	1:04
	"Jesus said to them,	1:07
	"The wedding guests cannot fast,	1:08
	"while the bridegroom is with them, can they?	1:10
	"As long as they have the bridegroom with them,	1:14
	"they cannot fast.	1:16
	"The days will come when the bridegroom	1:18
	"is taken away from them	1:20
	"and then they will fast on that day.	1:22
	"No one sows a piece of un-shrunk cloth on an old cloak,	1:24
	"otherwise the patch pulls away from it,	1:28
	"the new and the old and a worse tear is made.	1:31
	"And no one puts new wine into old wine skins,	1:34
	"otherwise the wine will burst the skins	1:37
	"and the wine is lost	1:40
	"and so are the skins.	1:41
	"But one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.	1:43
	"This is the word of the Lord."	1:47
-	Thanks be to God.	1:49
-	Well, yesterday I lost my voice.	2:00
	So I apologize to y'all for that.	2:02
	But what I have to give you, I will give you.	2:06
	Sometime during the late 1950s,	2:11
	when my mother was 12 or 13 years old,	2:14
	she was baptized in a small Church of God	2:16
	in southern West Virginia.	2:18
	Here, she dedicated her life to Christ	2:21
	and accepted his call.	2:23
	On the first of September of last year,	2:26
	in a hospital room in Seattle,	2:29
	her lungs were too bloody and ravaged	2:32
	by chemotherapy drugs to function any longer.	2:34
	Here, she dedicated her death to Christ,	2:37
	and he accepted her home.	2:40
	These two defining moments of her life,	2:44
	Paul might refer to as, "Her burial and resurrection."	2:46
	Dying in her baptism	2:50
	and rising again through her faith in God's power to raise.	2:52
	Such a backward way to look at life, isn't it?	2:57
	To begin with burial and end with resurrection?	3:00
	It's hard to completely understand.	3:04
	Yet I sense Paul's words hold within them	3:07
	a clue to a puzzling thing she told me before she died.	3:09
	She was in the hospital by this time	3:14
	and was several days past her bone marrow transplant.	3:15
	One day as I was reading in the corner of the hospital room,	3:19
	she awoke and told me she wanted to talk.	3:21
	She wanted to discuss what life might be like	3:25
	if she should be gone.	3:27
	She probably knew that my fear	3:29
	prevented me from discussing this within myself on my own	3:31
	and through all those barriers however,	3:37
	one piece of that conversation still remains with me.	3:42
	She took my hand,	3:46
	and looked at me with a motherly warm firmness,	3:48
	and said, "Patrick, I want you to know	3:50
	"that even if I'm not cured of this disease,	3:53
	"I have already been healed."	3:57
	She said it like a creed,	4:00
	like a battle cry rising from a soldier already fallen.	4:02
	She held it in her voice like a treasure,	4:05
	a pearl swallowed up to keep away from the thieves.	4:08
	It was the way she said it that still burdens me.	4:12
	I've explained it away 100 times over	4:16
	but none of my solutions	4:18
	seems to quite capture the light that was in her eyes.	4:20
	What were those words in those eyes trying to say?	4:24
	Even though I may not be cured, I have already been healed.	4:28
	I tell you all this today	4:33
	because I believe Jesus has something to tell us	4:34
	through the story that was just read	4:37
	about healing and curing.	4:38
	And in the cracks between my words,	4:40
	I pray God might reveal it to us.	4:42
	The story is set in the late time of Capernaum,	4:45
	in first century Palestine.	4:48
	There swirled a rumor there that a local lame man	4:51
	was dropped through a roof by his friends	4:54
	of a building in town	4:56
	and that he walked out its door.	4:58
	Not only that,	5:01
	but his sins were forgiven as well.	5:02
	Those who heard about this story	5:05
	wondered which was the greater miracle.	5:07
	That he walked, or that he was forgiven.	5:09
	One of the people who must've heard about this story	5:14
	was Levi, a toll collector on one of the nearby roads.	5:16
	He must've been intrigued by what he heard	5:20
	and especially by the questionable company Jesus kept,	5:23
	company like himself.	5:26
	Passing along one day, Jesus called him to follow.	5:29
	With no explanation or justification	5:32
	but only the words, "Follow me."	5:36
	Do you ever wonder what it was about Jesus's eyes	5:39
	or about his voice, or about the way he moved	5:42
	that would draw Levi out from his booth?	5:46
	Levi had no handicaps or diseases,	5:49
	what could Jesus offer him?	5:52
	The pharisees and doctors of the law,	5:55
	the religious right of that day,	5:57
	were also perplexed with why Jesus chose Levi.	5:59
	"Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?"	6:03
	they said.	6:05
	"What kind of priest concerns himself	6:07
	"with the rouges and the whores?	6:08
	"With thieves and charlatans?"	6:11
	"A man truly of God would gravitate toward his own,	6:13
	"the strong, the rich, the devout and the accepted."	6:16
	What was he trying to do with these sinners?	6:20
	Jesus told him his reason for keeping the company he kept.	6:24
	But as with so much,	6:28
	it seemed to escape their understanding.	6:29
	Jesus was challenging their conception of God	6:33
	and was threatening their security.	6:36
	Such a threat gave birth to reactionary condemnation.	6:39
	"Look!", they said.	6:42
	"The righteous are fasting,	6:44
	"even John's disciples are fasting,	6:45
	"but you, you are here feeding your belly.	6:47
	"Where's your purity that you can make others pure?	6:50
	"What makes you worthy?	6:53
	"Why don't you fit?"	6:55
	Christ's justification	6:59
	is simply that he and his band of followers	7:00
	were celebrating.	7:03
	Now, Jesus claimed that he and the shabby bunch of his	7:05
	crammed into an old dusty house,	7:08
	eating an ordinary meal,	7:10
	were celebrating a wedding	7:11
	of which he was the bridegroom.	7:13
	Strange.	7:16
	I'm not sure I would've had the eyes	7:21
	to see the celebration there.	7:22
	Could it have really been more than just a meal going on	7:25
	at that table of sinners?	7:27
	Could it have really been the solemn	7:30
	and joyous commemoration	7:31
	of a coming victory and reunion?	7:33
	I have to leave that to your eyes.	7:36
	But Jesus gives a further answer,	7:40
	"No one sews an un-shrunk piece of cloth on an old garment	7:42
	"and no one pours new wine into old wineskins."	7:45
	What does this mean?	7:49
	What is this un-shrunk patch, this new wine?	7:51
	What do the two even have to do with one another?	7:54
	Jesus leaves us no answer key for these questions.	7:58
	And I can't explain to you what this new wine is	8:03
	but I also can't help sense its burning importance.	8:06
	Perhaps this could be that elusive thing we seek	8:10
	in the depths of our hearts.	8:12
	Perhaps this could be that object of longing	8:14
	for which we can never find full description.	8:16
	But where do we even start to look at it?	8:20
	Most likely, you will all see wine	8:23
	before you leave here today.	8:25
	This is Christ's blood shed for you.	8:28
	If an old garment is repaired with an un-shrunk patch	8:33
	or if an old wineskin is filled with new wine,	8:35
	they both tear.	8:39
	Here we have common ground in tearing.	8:41
	Funny how Jesus gives us no notion	8:45
	of how to fix old garments, or use old wineskins	8:47
	but only how not to.	8:50
	He only speaks of tearing.	8:53
	It seems as if he's more concerned about	8:56
	describing the problems than the solutions.	8:57
	All he gives us is a protest	9:02
	directed at the self-assured,	9:03
	whose hearts have been stiffened and narrowed	9:06
	by the rituals, laws and methodical habits	9:08
	of their mapped out faith.	9:11
	Jesus directs his protest not at the known sinners,	9:14
	but at the sinners in denial.	9:18
	Everyone in this story has empty places in their souls,	9:21
	both the pious and the thieves.	9:25
	All of us here today	9:28
	have useless wineskins lying empty inside us.	9:29
	We all have gaping holes in our hearts' garment.	9:33
	And Jesus here tells us merely	9:39
	what not to do with these places.	9:41
	You see, the Pharisees' patch was religion	9:45
	and the tax collectors covered themselves with wealth.	9:48
	We all have our own patches	9:52
	to cover the emptiness inside us	9:54
	but those patches aren't good enough.	9:57
	They cannot hold the grace God intends	10:00
	and they lull us into a false security	10:03
	and lead us away from true freedom, risk, fulfillment	10:07
	and the keeping or saving of our souls.	10:12
	The world today tells us	10:17
	that if you want spiritual cleansing,	10:18
	you must go to a mountaintop and stay there.	10:19
	Maybe a mountaintop resort.	10:22
	Stay away from the noise of the city	10:25
	where the homeless lie drunk and dying.	10:27
	See, like the Pharisees,	10:31
	we want more to appear healed than to be healed.	10:32
	We would rather be freed from our weakness	10:37
	than be freed by our weakness.	10:39
	Our nature tells us the lie	10:42
	that peace comes with a change of the external.	10:44
	More money, more security, more experiences	10:46
	but Jesus warns us	10:51
	that filling the heart with things	10:52
	it was not made to contain,	10:54
	will only tear it even more.	10:55
	He invites us, he challenges us,	10:58
	to live a life without anesthetic.	11:00
	He tells us that the problems of this world	11:05
	cannot be solved with the solutions of this world.	11:07
	Our ways are not his ways	11:10
	but our wounds are indeed his wounds,	11:13
	and by those wounds we are healed.	11:17
	Our hope is his presence within us	11:21
	and in the triumph of the cross	11:25
	which that presence constantly proclaims.	11:27
	If we could gather up our holes,	11:32
	our wounds, our sin and our pain,	11:34
	and have the courage enough to simply wait in the silence,	11:37
	I believe that the strength we need	11:40
	to hope for our healing will find us.	11:42
	If we could only trust enough to wait for the new wine	11:45
	instead of all the wine that the world offers us,	11:49
	we might find that in our expectation	11:52
	our old wineskins may become new as well.	11:55
	And this is the substance of our hope.	11:59
	We must cling to that hope,	12:02
	we must cling wildly to that hope.	12:03
	On Friday, the 13th of August,	12:10
	I realized that my mother was sick beyond cure.	12:12
	Only a few short strands of her remained	12:16
	and I stood stroking them back	12:20
	as she looked up at me,	12:21
	with her eyes now filled with blood.	12:23
	I sang her that alphabet song.	12:26
	♪ A, B, C, D, E, F , G ♪	12:30
	Like she used to sing to me in the bathtub	12:32
	as she washed the shampoo from my hair stroking it back.	12:35
	Her face lit up with joy amidst my grief	12:42
	and she told me how she remembered singing it to me.	12:45
	At that moment, I first began to understand what she meant	12:50
	when she talked about the difference	12:53
	between healing and curing.	12:54
	As I stood there fighting through the fear,	12:58
	I also felt healing begin to seep in.	13:02
	At such a painful farewell,	13:07
	there was strange joy	13:09
	because I saw that she believed that in her baptism	13:11
	her wounds were no longer merely hers.	13:14
	They became trophies of her redeemer's victory	13:19
	and her goodbye became a celebration of grace.	13:23
	You see, death never really was the enemy.	13:29
	The real enemy is fear.	13:33
	Fear that the new wine will never come.	13:35
	But we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses	13:40
	that urges us on in our expectation.	13:42
	I know my mother's in that cloud	13:46
	and I'm sure many of you know some others there as well.	13:49
	They stand at the end of this hard journey	13:55
	and call to us from the feast of sinners at Christ's table.	13:58
	You are invited to that table today.	14:04
	Come.	14:07
	And see if your eyes can catch a glimpse	14:09
	of that celebration for which we wait.	14:11

Item Info

Title:

Patrick M. Clark - "Awaiting New Wine" (February 27, 2000)

Description:

Sermon start time: 02:00. Sermon end time: 14:13.
We are all filled with holes and wounds which we try to fill with different things, whether it's religion or money or something else, but rather than trying to fill those holes externally, we must look internally and open ourselves to accepting the Kingdom of God inside. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: "If we can gather up our wounds, our holes, our sins, and our pain and have the courage enough to simply wait in the silence, I believe the strength we need to hope for our healing will find us."

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4nk36k6z

Date:

February 27, 2000

Speaker:

Clark, Patrick M.

Liturgical Calendar:

Epiphany

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Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1000
ref10157_uzg
uachapelsermaud
duke:320972
dcrau001644
ark:/87924/r4nk36k6z
8e028382-79f2-4938-8bfc-738a1496c9ce

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Duke Chapel Recordings

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Duke University Chapel recordings, 1954-2005

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United States
North Carolina
Durham (N.C.)

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

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Patrick M. Clark - "Awaiting New Wine" (February 27, 2000)

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1. Patrick M. Clark - "Awaiting New Wine" (February 27, 2000)

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