William H. Willimon - "Homecoming" (April 23, 2000)

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Woman	It's from the Gospel according to	0:03
	Saint Mark, the sixteenth chapter.	0:05
	When the Sabbath was over Mary Magdalene	0:10
	and Mary the mother of James and Salome brought spices,	0:13
	so that they might go and anoint Him.	0:18
	And very early on the first day of the week	0:22
	when the sun had risen they went to the tomb.	0:26
	They had been saying to one another	0:31
	who will roll away the stone for us	0:33
	from the entrance to the tomb.	0:35
	When they looked up they saw that the stone	0:39
	which was very large had already been rolled back.	0:42
	As they entered the tomb they saw a young man	0:48
	dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side.	0:52
	And they were alarmed. But he said to them,	0:56
	"Do not be alarmed. You are looking for	1:00
	"Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.	1:04
	"He has been raised. He is not here.	1:08
	"Look there is the place they laid Him.	1:13
	"But go, tell His disciples and Peter,	1:17
	"that He is going ahead of you to Galilee.	1:21
	"There you will see Him, just as He told you.	1:25
	"This is the word of the Lord."	1:30
Congregation	Thanks be to God.	1:33
Pastor	I want to speak to those of you who are going	1:43
	through grief like the death of someone you love.	1:48
	Which by my reckoning includes just about everybody here.	1:55
	For some, your pain is still acute.	2:03
	Others found that the ache of your loss gradually receded.	2:08
	You got up, you went on, but still often when you	2:15
	least expect grief still grips you.	2:22
	And again you realize that there are not many	2:28
	days in this life where there is not loss.	2:31
	Those whom we love keep leaving.	2:38
	Keep journeying into that land from	2:42
	which no traveler ever returns.	2:46
	Emily Dickinson spoke of that hour	2:51
	of lead when grief drags down,	2:54
	despite our determined efforts to rise.	3:00
	My friend Stuart, for whom I still grieve.	3:06
	Once showed me a photograph of his parents.	3:10
	By this time they had been gone at least two decades.	3:14
	And he said, "And I miss them every day."	3:18
	Stuart told me of once opening a book	3:25
	and discovering there a mere grocery list	3:28
	written in his mothers hand and he said,	3:32
	"Twenty years later, just seeing that,	3:36
	I was still utterly undone."	3:40
	When Virgil shows Dante down to the Land of the Dead	3:45
	Dante says, he marveled at the magnitude of those departed.	3:51
	He said, "I had not known that death had undone so many."	3:58
	When tragedy struck Littleton, a gaggle of grief counselors	4:06
	descended upon Columbine High, urging grievers to talk	4:11
	it out, to express the hurt, to weep.	4:15
	Reassuring the bereaved this was therapeutic.	4:17
	Really?	4:23
	After the tears, after the rage, after the complaint.	4:27
	What do you do with grief?	4:33
	What, what is there to be said to the grief?	4:35
	Something more is needed than just expressing the grief.	4:40
	After the rage, after the trite that well meaning	4:47
	consolations of friends, after the therapeutic tears.	4:51
	Great deaths still sits enthroned saying, "I won."	4:58
	Paul says, "Christians do not grieve as those who	5:08
	"have no hope. We still grieve, yes, but not with out hope."	5:13
	And what hope when those who we love keep	5:22
	slipping from our loving grasp and journeying	5:26
	into that land from which no traveler ever returned.	5:30
	Jesus told a story about a father who had two sons.	5:36
	The youngest son demanded an inheritance	5:45
	that he may leave home and go out into,	5:48
	in Jesus' evocative phrase, the far country.	5:53
	The imputant little wretch as youngest son he had no claim	5:59
	to anything that his father owned.	6:03
	But surprise!	6:07
	The father, Jesus said, divided his entire living,	6:09
	his whole life, and the boy promptly slipped	6:14
	out into the far country where he wasted every	6:19
	cent of his inheritance on booze and bad women.	6:22
	Eventually, in hunger and want, Jesus says,	6:28
	the boy came to himself, he said, " I die hear.	6:34
	"And yet I have a home and I have a father	6:42
	"who's servants have it better than I.	6:46
	"I will rise, I will go home."	6:52
	And when he was a long way off, Jesus said,	6:57
	the father saw and ran and embraced him.	7:00
	That father who must have been waiting a long time	7:07
	for his wastrel son to return, grieving for him.	7:09
	Now the father cried, "Come celebrate with me,	7:15
	my son who was dead is alive!"	7:20
	You've probably heard this story before,	7:27
	you know that when the stuff-shirted high SAT scoring	7:29
	older brother refused to come in and party with	7:31
	his prodigal, the jubilant father replied,	7:35
	"Your brother who was dead is a live."	7:42
	You wonder how long the father had been waiting	7:48
	for the dead son to rise and come home.	7:50
	You wonder how the father waited.	7:55
	For all he knew his son was dead.	7:59
	You can just hear helpful friends saying,	8:04
	"Well you've got to face facts.	8:10
	"You've got to get up, you've got to go on.	8:12
	"You need to focus on your older boy	8:16
	"who is still here with you."	8:18
	And yet Jesus said, still the father waited.	8:20
	I can tell you that being a Pastor around here,	8:26
	there is just about no worse duty than telling	8:31
	a parent about the loss of a child.	8:36
	When their student, son, or daughter has died.	8:40
	I expect that the prodigal son was	8:44
	about the age of Duke sophomores.	8:47
	Such grief the father must have felt.	8:51
	The son was still alive in the far country,	8:55
	but the father didn't know that,	8:58
	and still the father waited and he looked down	9:00
	that road in front of the house,	9:04
	still straining to see, hoping for sight of his son.	9:06
	Now we call this story, The Story of the Prodigal Son,	9:13
	but Jesus doesn't call it anything.	9:17
	We might just as well call it,	9:22
	The Story of the Prodigal Father, that is the	9:23
	prodigal that is reckless, extravagant father.	9:27
	And he is, when the boy left home the father	9:33
	extravagantly gave him his entire living.	9:36
	And when his lost son finally returned	9:40
	the father even more recklessly gave him a party.	9:43
	He loved his son extravagantly upon leaving	9:50
	and loved him even more prodigally upon return.	9:53
	I think it's a parable about the love of God	10:01
	that reckless, effusive, extravagant love.	10:06
	It is told by the Savior, who when the wine ran low at the	10:11
	wedding at Cana made a 150 gallons more.	10:18
	I'm a Methodist, I don't know, but still	10:23
	that's got to be a lot of wine.	10:24
	When the bread and the fish gave out in the wilderness,	10:28
	Jesus said, "Look the baskets are full,	10:33
	"it's got to be enough to serve at least five thousand."	10:35
	You will note that love tends toward	10:40
	prodigality, abundance, excess.	10:42
	I respect grief, that's excessive,	10:49
	at prodigal screaming and flailing grievers.	10:55
	Those grievers do just seem to get over,	10:59
	get through grief the fastest.	11:03
	When Jesus heard that his friend Lazarus had died,	11:08
	Jesus wept bitterly and the crowd seeing	11:11
	Jesus weep said, "See how he loved him."	11:14
	Great grief accompanies great loss.	11:22
	That poor uptight, do right older brother	11:28
	in Jesus' story was such a miser,	11:31
	when he got word of this awesome party going on at the	11:34
	big house to welcome his wayward little brother home,	11:37
	"A party and on a Sunday!"	11:41
	In our worst moments we've got	11:46
	this kind of miserly view of life.	11:48
	Life is measured, it is finite, it is terminal,	11:51
	three score and ten says the Bible.	11:54
	Life begins with such potential and then it waste.	11:58
	Waste away to nearly nothing just a few faded memories,	12:02
	a photograph or two and then the hour of lead.	12:07
	The journey into the far country from	12:14
	whence no traveler ever returns.	12:18
	And friends tell us to face facts, admit defeat,	12:24
	let go, stiff upper lip, life goes on.	12:26
	What they mean is grief goes on.	12:32
	But, but what if the story that Jesus told is true?	12:37
	What if God is a prodigal?	12:44
	A father who when it comes to life holds nothing back.	12:48
	Well what then?	12:52
	The father loved the absent son abundantly,	12:54
	when he was away as when he was back home.	12:57
	The father waited in confident expectation	13:00
	that the good-as-dead son would return, would be home,	13:03
	and then the party could begin.	13:08
	With my son who was dead is alive.	13:11
	This is talk of resurrection. It's time to put	13:20
	our grief in context, we grieve yes.	13:24
	And our grief is testimonial to what	13:29
	a good gift life is that God has given.	13:32
	There is grief because death is real.	13:36
	And yet our grief is framed by the conviction	13:41
	that the same God who so recklessly,	13:47
	extravagantly over flowed in giving life shall	13:50
	continue to give life even in death.	13:55
	The father waits, confident that the far	13:59
	country of death shall not have the last word.	14:05
	The father waits ready to give life	14:08
	abundantly more than we deserve life.	14:11
	Not because of who we are but because it is	14:15
	the nature of this God to love extravagantly.	14:19
	Listen to the story, those whom we have loved and died.	14:26
	And have left us, have left us to come home.	14:32
	The God who gave them now embraces them in eternity.	14:39
	And they await us to join the party.	14:44
	Grief is not the last word, the last word is home.	14:49
	And then we find what we thought was home	14:57
	namely here wasn't home, this was only a weigh station.	15:01
	And what we thought was the end, namely death,	15:08
	was in Christ the beginning.	15:12
	And what we thought was unredeemable loss,	15:16
	death, is in Christ homecoming.	15:19
	Would you note that The Story of	15:26
	the Prodigal Son has no ending.	15:29
	We wonder, did the older brother ever let go	15:33
	of his sniveling logic, relax, relent, join the party.	15:37
	We wonder if the younger son ever learned from his mistakes	15:43
	and got more mature and responsible.	15:47
	We don't know, Jesus doesn't let us peak inside the party.	15:50
	All we know is that both boys are finally safe at home.	15:57
	All we know is that the father has at last got himself	16:02
	what he always wanted, a family at home.	16:06
	Maybe the story doesn't end because it's eternal?	16:12
	We know when the party began but	16:16
	for all we know it never ends.	16:18
	The end is depicted by Jesus as an eternal party.	16:23
	For those sons and daughters who once were dead	16:28
	but now alive, lost but now found.	16:32
	The ones we love and whom death seems so cruelly to have	16:37
	snatched are not lost but found, not dead but alive.	16:40
	In a God who shall not let miserly	16:47
	death defeat divine extravagance.	16:50
	What we experience is the pain of giving them up to that	16:53
	dark country is through the eyes of faith homecoming.	16:57
	Look at all that God has gone through for us	17:04
	down through the ages, to find us and embrace us.	17:08
	Shall death defeat the purposes of such an extravagant God?	17:14
	In the darkness of grief, women came to the	17:22
	tomb for the dead body of Jesus.	17:25
	Hear the words spoken, "Do not be alarmed.	17:31
	You're looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was	17:34
	crucified, well he's not here.	17:36
	He's raised, he's going on ahead of you."	17:39
	Going on ahead of you...where?	17:42
	Towards the end of John's Gospel Jesus told his disciples	17:48
	he was leaving them and they were sad.	17:53
	And then Jesus said, "I'm going to prepare a place for you	17:56
	"that one day you may come too."	18:02
	Our hope in life, in death is that the same God who	18:07
	raised Jesus may condescend to raise us as well.	18:13
	Beginning the week after my mother died	18:21
	I had this recurring dream and in my dream, I was back home.	18:26
	It was a home designed and built by my mother	18:32
	whose every inch she cherished, whose every corner spoke	18:37
	to her of creativity and her love of beauty.	18:41
	I remember being pleased that I was dreaming of home.	18:46
	Because I expected she would be there.	18:52
	And I would move from room to room in my dream	18:55
	and I would be surprised to see every detail, every book on	18:58
	the shelf just as I remembered it from childhood.	19:02
	But then I would wake up and I would realize	19:07
	that my mother had never appeared in the dream.	19:10
	Night after night, this dream.	19:14
	I kept thinking she would eventually reappear	19:16
	in this place that she loved but she never did.	19:20
	Finally, it dawned on me, it wasn't a dream about my	19:26
	being back home again, it was a dream about her being home.	19:32
	Not at our home but at God's.	19:40
	She was now safe, embraced, at home with the God	19:46
	who had loved her in life now forever.	19:52
	She was at home in a place prepared for her.	19:57
	It wasn't a dream about my misty long forgotten past,	20:04
	it was a dream about a still unfolding,	20:11
	unconstrained, extravagant future.	20:14
	From this far country of grief and death.	20:19
	She was home and by God's grace so shall we.	20:25
	Christ is not here, he is gone on	20:33
	to prepare a place for us,	20:39
	home.	20:43

Item Info

Title:

William H. Willimon - "Homecoming" (April 23, 2000)

Description:

Sermon start time: 01:43. Sermon end time: 20:44.
Our grief at the death of those we love is real, because the loss is real. Yet, through the eyes of faith, we can learn to see that what seems to be the end in death is really the beginning in Christ. Through Christ, death is a homecoming; it is a returning to the Father who gives us life abundantly and extravagantly. So we grieve, yes, but our grief is not without hope. (Abstract created by Duke Divinity School staff.)
Key quotation: “We grieve, yes. And our grief is testimonial to what a good gift life is that God has given. There is grief because death is real. And yet our grief is framed by the conviction that the same God who so recklessly, extravagantly overflowed in giving life shall continue to give life even in death. The Father waits, confident that the far country of death shall not have the last word.”

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4vh5cz4x

Date:

April 23, 2000

Speaker:

Willimon, William H.

Liturgical Calendar:

Easter

Biblical Book:

Mark

Chapter and Verse:

Mark 16:1-8

Subject:

Contributor:

Duke University. Chapel

Identifier:

UA.17.01.0003 CS-1009
ref10175_u07
uachapelsermaud
duke:320768
dcrau001653
ark:/87924/r4vh5cz4x
aaf17b0c-4d28-4a06-a455-af4206969f69

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 - "Homecoming" (April 23, 2000)

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1. William H. Willimon - "Homecoming" (April 23, 2000)

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